Viticulture and Landscape in the Italian Northwestern Alpine Region

Abstract

Three Northern Italian regions, Valle d’Aosta, Piedmont and Liguria, have specific identities though united by deep geographical and historical common traits. They are traditional wine-growing regions, producing several renowned wines, often in difficult areas. The ‘heroic’ viticulture, vineyard sites at altitudes over 500 meters (1,600 feet), vines planted on slopes greater than 30% on terraces or embankments, is a cultural element of the wine-growing system in all the three regions, each having a share of mountain and slope areas. Liguria and Valle d’Aosta are much smaller regions than Piedmont; they have a big share of mountain area of the total regional surface. The paper aims describing the diversity of wine landscapes in the three regions, all of them having a large mountain and slope area within the respective total geographical surface. Data have been collected following the Grounded theory, i.e. retrieving data from very diverse sources, including direct observations. Results are that the reality of the heroic viticulture is a fundamental part of the local wine-making in Valle d’Aosta and Liguria.