Protecting Bardolino’s Identity and Quality Amid Globalization Challenges
Like never before, the world of «Bardolino», and everything related to wine, appears exposed to the most diverse and unpredictable influences. Despite a meticulous effort underway for decades, coordinated by the Consorzio to improve quality and defend typicity, perpetual doubts still emerge regarding cultural directions and commercial policies. Such actions should wisely be guided to support the market without abandoning one’s culture or drastically altering one’s vineyards.
The risk of globalization and the defense of identity
“It is undeniable,” stated Luciano Bonuzzi during the coordination of the conference “Wine Quality. Bardolino Quality,” promoted by the Consorzio, “that we cannot escape the wind of globalization with its ups and downs and its destructive breath capable of dispersing tastes and flavors into the wind, when proposing solutions that are foreign to our established wine and food customs.
Certainly, nothing is taken for granted anymore, but it is not certain that abandoning one’s tradition guarantees market stability. On the contrary, it seems indispensable — emphasized Bonuzzi, head of the psychiatric service at Ulss 22 and a scholar and researcher in the fields of wine and nutrition — to strengthen the awareness of one’s own identity, both cultural and agrarian: “In fact, it is necessary to offer original and easily recognizable products on the commercial level.”
The quality of wine and tradition
Focusing on the essential aspect of product quality, even if some market experts say that quality is what the consumer demands and nothing more, Bonuzzi pointed out that this is, at the very least, a limited view. “Moreover, consumption can be guided or misled at will: an operation that is particularly easy for products like wine, which fall among life’s pleasures rather than essential nutritional needs.
Therefore, for wine, an alimentary beverage imbued with culture, it is not easy to clearly define and pinpoint the reasons behind its quality structure.” “However, essential,” Bonuzzi clarified, “are hygiene characteristics linked to health, and regarding the relationship between wine and culture, fidelity to tradition and respect for well-established flavors that evoke and help recognize the territory where the grapes ripen are of great importance. In this regard, quality overlaps with typicity.”
Characteristics and protection of Bardolino
«Bardolino», a young and lively red wine with an inimitable “saline” flavor, now possesses, as required by current regulations, guaranteed hygienic characteristics, in harmony with the most prestigious products offered to consumers. Moderately alcoholic, it is an ideal table wine. Like many red wines, among many substances, it naturally contains resveratrol, in adequate amounts.
A natural substance found mainly in the skins of grape berries, resveratrol preferentially transfers into red wine, providing a preventive benefit against coronary pathologies. “It is crucial to defend typicity, the main reason for quality; a difficult battle,” Bonuzzi concluded, recalling, among other things, the old project of 19th-century enologists, who looked to Chianti and Bordeaux and recommended traditional grape varieties such as Sangiovese. Back then, Bardolino was saved by consumers and, in particular — as Solitro warns — by the German consumer, who appreciated the charm of a territory he loved and had come to know as a tourist, in the flavor of Bardolino.