Soil, vine and other quality cultures: “terroir” and “zonazione” concepts introduction and practice

Abstract

The research of the cultural vocation is one of the most effective means for quality and typicality protection of the productions and, at the same time, to limit soil degradation. In particular, the study of “terroir”, i.e. the relationships between environment and product quality, highlights a local positivity of the resources, strongly linked to the specificity of origin environments. It must be fairly protect. The valorisation of terroir is mostly considered one of the greatest prospects of success for national agriculture within global market, because very often the quality crops become also reference crops and driving imaging for a territory. Actually the term “total quality of territory” is very useful; it means the territory managed in function of crops quality, soil and ecosystem conservation, environment healthiness and landscape beauty. The reconnaissance of the territory vocation needs the research of its peculiarities witch determine the uniqueness of that production area. Therefore the uniqueness of a terroir is a value added to the quality and it may be determining for the success of a cultivation. The “zoning” technique started from the introduction of terroir concept. It is the division of a territory in function of its ecopedological and geographic characteristics and checking the qualitative result of different species and varieties. In short, the climatic, pedological and crop information interact with productivity and quality of crops.Through the zoning, the constituents of terroir and the verification