Interview with the president Angelo Radica
We are in the municipality of Tollo, one of the 470 municipalities that are part of the Wine Cities Association. And with us today is the mayor, who is also president of the association since 2021.
The Wine Cities Association was born in ’87, when municipalities from major Italian cities met in Siena to defend companies and farmers from the methanol scandal that swept Italy in those years. The association over time has evolved and today we are still growing. I was elected in Barolo on November 21, 2021, and in my inaugural speech I said that we must become the union, the defenders and enhancers of the territories. This today is the mission I wanted to give to this association.
How does one become a municipality of the Association?
First of all, you have to have wine production, you should have a DOC and you need to have qualities and quantities. We brought Procida in because it is the capital of culture this year and because there is a beautiful project going on: we are going to make garden-vineyards in the land on the edge of the houses and this collective production will then confer in a company, which in turn will produce the island’s wine. But how does one become it? Here is the first step and make an application, then there is a committee that evaluates the characteristics of the municipality and the land.
Among your goals for this term was a strengthening of the master plan. What does it consist of and is it going according to your expectations?
The association’s main mission is to stay close to the territories, mayors, wineries and producers. For example, if they call us to warn that they are putting some DOC at risk by placing photovoltaic poles or wind poles in the middle of the vineyards, we have the ability to make mayors feel less alone, thanks to direct contacts with ministries and ENIT and also at the international level. While, within the basket of projects that intervene to help municipalities to valorize products, we have a series of tools and initiatives aimed at communication such as “Calici di Stelle” organized together with the Wine Tourism Movement and which is always a great success or the international wine competition “City of Wine,” the most numerous for samples and the oldest in Italy. Concerning the Master Plan, we asked ourselves, “how do you plan a territory intended for wine production?” .
Land consumption is a big problem because when productive land is used for residential activities, there is no turning back. So we consulted the best Italian planners and urban planners and, together with the national INU, wrote guidelines on how to plan the territory of a Wine City. For example, the Municipality of Tollo in 2014 had to make a master plan, and to do so it was inspired by the standards identified by this staff of engineers and adhered to the proposed guidelines. Then every two years we award the municipality that has made the best land-use plan, that is, the one that adheres most closely to our guidelines.
And this discussion also includes wine tourism, one of the key levers behind the activities of Wine Cities…
Wine tourism in the past 10 years, and even in Covid periods, has realized the highest growth rates in terms of tourists. Why is this? The sea is beautiful, the mountains are attractive, religious tourism is enjoyable, but visiting a winery, smelling the scents, witnessing the winemaking, witnessing the harvest, all of these represent experiential tourism par excellence. We are working a lot: we have signed with other associations and the Wine Tourism Movement a protocol to support wine tourism, designing tourist routes and trying to systematize hospitality and reception. It is our duty to offer tourists an alternative of tourist routes, but to do this requires expertise and professionalism, and it is necessary to fix the roads and improve connectivity. Wine tourism is an important issue that needs to be discussed, but within an alliance called the “Spello Pact.”
What do you expect for the next 2 years of your mandate?
First of all, I expect a growth in members, which is already taking place, but we could reach 1,000 members because the problem of small Municipalities is that they are alone, therefore we must further legitimize ourselves as an organism, as a subject who can help mayors solve problems, inventing new projects and consolidating existing ones.
