UNESCO World Heritage Site – 50 years of the Consorzio – Guest region at Decanter’s Sparkling Wine Exploration
A territory that is a global cultural heritage of exceptional universal value, to be protected, preserved, and handed down to future generations
Announced on 7 July 2019: the Prosecco Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene are officially the 55th Italian “World Heritage Site”. So the UNESCO Assembly gathered in Azerbaijan declared.
This announcement is the latest in a series of good news stories from the small corner of Italy, not far from Venice, that produces the DOCG version of the country’s most popular sparkling wine, Prosecco.
2019 sees celebrations for 50 years of work to protect and promote the wines under the umbrella of the Consortium for the Protection of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG.
Credit: Arcangelo Piai
Readers of Decanter and decanter.com who visited the Decanter Great Sparkling Wine Exploration will have been able to taste some of the finest examples of Prosecco DOCG from Conegliano and Valdobbiadene at this recent event.
There is no doubt of the great excitement for producers and the Consortium at the UNESCO news.
Innocente Nardi – President of the Consortium for the Protection of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG – expressed his “profound satisfaction and immense joy at the declaration of the Hills of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene as a World Heritage Site. In Baku, the UNESCO World Assembly bestowed upon our hills this coveted recognition, thereby making them the 55th Italian site to be protected and safeguarded due to the uniqueness of its cultural landscape.
Nardi added, “this recognition should not be seen as arrival at a destination, but merely as an important step on a journey towards enhancing the cultural, artistic, and agricultural heritage of this small area, known for its principal product, Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore”.
Credit: Arcangelo Piai
He also paid tribute to the producers’ commitment to the fulfilment of the 10-year project that brought about UNESCO recognition and to the generations of producers whose toil in the vineyards has shaped the landscape.
“Right from the beginning, and throughout the entire nomination process, the producers have never wavered in their belief in the uniqueness of our landscape, with its vineyard-embroidered hills and inaccessible slopes that require such hard and entirely manual labour. It is the commitment of generations of wine producers working in the vineyards, forging the “patchworks” that we see today, as well as the characteristic “ciglioni”, which distinguish our viticulture – and therefore our territory – from others, that has led to UNESCO recognition”.
