Regional Institute of Wine and Oil

Precision viticulture, the first course in Sicily

The first theoretical-practical course in precision viticulture in Sicily has successfully begun. Yesterday the opening was held at the premises of the institution's Cantina Dalmasso in Marsala. The general director of IRVOS, Lucio Monte, and the president of Do Sicilia, Antonio Rallo, opened the proceedings. This is a course that starts from the Avigere project, one of the IRVOS projects completed and which gave an important input to viticulture.

“Avigere – explains Felice Capraro of IRVOS and project manager – represented the possible method with which to achieve sustainable viticulture and marked the starting point for the creation of traceability of wine production”. The inevitable next step is therefore training. “This is a training course aimed at agronomists and oenologists from Sicilian wineries”. In the foreground the Regional Institute of Wines and Oils of Sicily in collaboration with the 'INRA-SupAgro' center of Montpellier, France, and the Departments of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences and Civil, Environmental, Aerospace and Materials Engineering of the University of Palermo.

The course, in which twelve participants from different areas of Sicily took part, will end on 11 July. Lessons take place from 9am to 1am, two field tests are scheduled and the teachers also include researchers from Montpellier who have decades of experience in the field of precision viticulture. Among these Bruno Tisseyre, associate professor of Fruition-Science.

Below are the wineries from which the technicians and agronomists who participated in the course come:

Pietratagliata (TP)
Deer Plane (CT)
Minutoli Higher Institute (ME)
Birgi social winery (TP)
Birgi Vini (TP)
CVA (AG)
Donnafugata Estate (TP)
Colomba Bianca Cellars (TP)
Cantine Settesoli (AG)
Lands of Noto (SR)
Planeta Agricultural Companies (AG)