BIO WINERY ORSOGNA
THE WINERY
The history of the Cantina Sociale di Orsogna (now BIO Cantina Orsogna) began in 1964 when 35 winemakers came together to bring a dream to life: the town’s Cantina Sociale.
Love for its land and its people has led the cooperative to take “the path of naturalness” so as to cultivate and produce in harmony with nature while trying to safeguard the health of the land, ecosystems and people. The conversion took place step by step, farm by farm, through field demonstration of the possibility of forgoing chemicals while ensuring quality and quantity production. In 1995, the conversion to organic farming began, which by 2022 had reached 100 percent of the planted area (about 1400 ha) and to biodynamic farming (Demeter), which now involves 45 percent of the farm’s planted area.

PÉ NIN PERDE LA SUMENTE
“Preserving and cultivating biodiversity as a legacy” is the commitment of BIO Cantina Orsogna. The project “Pè Nin Perde la Sumente” from the Abruzzese dialect “not to lose the seed,” understood as origins or traditions, was born out of BIO Cantina Orsogna’s collaboration with Maiella National Park and its Germplasm Bank, with the goal of preserving and cultivating “peasant knowledge and flavors,” which are fundamental to the survival and development of rural territories.

LOCAL VARIETIES, AN EXPRESSION OF PEASANT CULTURE AND MEMORY
Agriculture is the guardian of the land and agricultural landscapes, the bulwark of safeguarding from erosion the identities and heritages of farming skills that have always been handed down from generation to generation.
Family and farming culture preserves biodiversity: in the past, the bride brought seeds as dowry along with her trousseau. Local varieties have been reproduced for centuries in a given environment, farmers have cultivated them and over time have gone through a process of selection and domestication, and their cultivation makes less use of chemicals and water, reduces pollution.

“PÉ NIN PERDE LA SUMENTE”: BIODIVERSITY RECOVERY OF MOUNTAIN AND MARGINAL AREAS
Biodiversity recovery starts from marginal areas and mountains-“the biodiversity vault.”
Mountain areas in recent decades have witnessed a remarkable process of depopulation and abandonment of cultivation, turning land into marginal farms where intensive agriculture never arrived, and today are the refuge of plant and animal biodiversity. An extraordinary wealth of varieties and biotypes, the result of centuries of selective pressure from the environment and domestication by farmers. A great resource that represents specificity of place, community identity and opportunity for farms.