This southern Italian island's famous dessert wine Passito risks becoming extinct over the next decade unless the constant drop in production is reversed, local producers warned.
"Production continues to decline because of the difficulty in replanting vines, strict zoning regulations, diminishing manpower and the near impossibility of mechanising grape harvests because of the terraced terrain," observed Giuseppe Lo Re, chairman of the Pantelleria wine consortium which represents 85% of the island's wine production.
Wine grape production this year on Pantelleria amounted to only 2,500 tonnes, compared to 24,000 tonnes in 1990 and 45,000 tonnes in 1973.
Making matters worse this year was an attack on Pantelleria's vines of the fungal disease peronospera
"We need to stabilise production at 5,000 tonnes in order to have a constant quality production. This will not be much but enough to maintain the island's economy, Lo Re said.
"We need to give a boost to production using national and European Union resources in order to protect this valuable resource. Most of all we must give farmers incentives and mechanize production wherever possible," the consortium chief added.
There are currently 28 vineyards on the island but only two, Miceli and Pellegrino, can produce at an international level. Of the 9,310 hectoliters of wine produced last year - including moscato, passito and quality table wine - Pellegrino and Miceli bottled some 6,000 and Miceli about 2,600.
During the first nine months of the current year, 8,465 hectoliters of Pantelleria wine were bottled. Of these 1,120 were of moscato, 719 of passito and 6,626 of white wine.
Among those producing passito on this windswept island is French actress Carole Bouquet, who has a small vineyard.
