Abstract
Despite the increasing role of new wine producers in the world market, wine production continues to be dominated by the traditional producer countries, such as France, Italy and Spain. In order to ensure that the values of wine production in the European countries with strong wine vocation remain high, it is necessary for the companies to develop strategies that enhance the bond with the territory, able to ensure the peculiar characteristics of the typical products. However, to achieve a greater competitive advantage in a global context, it is important to promote processes with low environmental impact, in order to use the sustainability of production as a further strategic market tool, since the deterioration of the natural environment is today a global concern. This paper evaluates the water sustainability of the Italian wine production analyzing the water footprint of viticulture. The choice of this indicator is due to the fact that it is a complete indicator of the potential environmental impact of a product on water resources, estimating the pressure on water resources in terms of consumption and pollution. The study analyses the water footprint of viticulture in three Italian areas through a simple comparative analysis among the global average wine water footprint, the Italian average wine water footprint, the water footprints of wine made from Italian grapes, cultivated respectively in the Northern, Centre and Southern-insular Italy. The objective of this research is to evaluate if quality wines and in particular DOC and DOCG wines involve higher or lower consumption of virtual water than bulk wines. From the comparison and assessment of the data on water footprints of two DOC wines, whose vineyards are located respectively in the Northern and Southern-insular Italy, we demonstrate that quality wines are associated with a lower water footprint, mainly because the water footprint associated with the grapes used in the production of DOC or DOCG wines is solely due to the green water footprint component since, according to the specifications of production, both irrigation and fertilization are prohibited. Furthermore the territoriality of typical wines, which means good crops adaptation to the traditional places of production, allows to produce sustainable wine, even if the yields in terms of liters/hectare are kept low.