Europa Wineries
Sustainability
Our Vision
For Cantine Europa, its 60-year history is important to implement a well-defined strategy: a continuous evolution of the quality of its wines through attention to the health of the consumer and sustainability environmental.
Our Goals
To achieve these goals, we are taking a number of concrete measures, including:
- The installation of photovoltaic systems for renewable energy production. At present, we have installed four photovoltaic systems in order to produce green and renewable energy.
- The use of LED lighting to reduce energy consumption.
Ninety percent of indoor rooms have LED lighting controlled by timers in order to minimize energy consumption. - The use of environmentally friendly packaging.
58 percent of the company’s packaging is made from recycled fiber and 42 percent from virgin fiber. - The adoption of sustainable agricultural practices in the vineyard.
We have converted 814 hectares of vineyards to organic.
This has allowed us to eliminate the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers to improve soil fertility and fruit quality. - Support for social and environmental projects.
Cantine Europa supports social and environmental development projects in the local community in which it operates through collaborations with the University of Palermo and local tourism associations.
As part of this project not only of sustainability but also of circular economy, Cantine Europa produces organic wines and sparkling wines from Grillo grapes, with reduced use of oenological adjuvants and with innovative management of selected indigenous yeasts and noble lees for an extension of the technological longevity of the bottled product. Proof of this is Grillante: in fact, its production takes place with reduced use of oenological adjuvants, is traceable and long-lived. In addition, through the waste products of the entire wine supply chain (distilled pomace and pruning waste) was a high-quality compost for agronomic use in organic regime. Compost, in fact, is used both for the production of wines and for the production of cheeses enriched with natural nutraceuticals (phenolic extracts from wine by-products) that are also authentic and traceable. The project, therefore, with an integrated approach in the fields of agronomy, viticulture, plant pathology, microbiology, oenological chemistry and agribusiness, saw:
- The identification of biotypes and areas planted with organic Grillo grapes characterized by the best phytosanitary and technological quality, through a process of soil zoning, in order to produce traceable organic and sparkling wines with high longevity;
- The definition of the best technological and oenological conditions for the stabilization of organic white wines, produced either in the absence or with reduced use of oenological adjuvants, leading to high quality, greater longevity and higher health value of the wine;
- The implementation of a composting system for wine industry by-products that can reduce management costs and environmental issues related to the disposal of viticultural and oenological waste;
- The development of a protocol for the extraction of phenols from grape pomace for use in the dairy sector to obtain products with high nutraceutical value;
- The establishment of a system of territorial traceability and authentication of raw materials and finished products on a chemical and genotypic basis.
Cantine Europa thus had the opportunity to diversify the company’s offerings through the production of organic wines produced with innovative systems, obtained through the implementation of economically sustainable processes with the reduction and/or elimination of oenological adjuvants during the main winemaking stages and the increase in technological longevity through natural phenolic-anthocyanin and protein stabilization.
Strategic in this context is the creation of an objective stamping and authentication system, with emphasis on security and verification of the origin and authenticity of the raw material used for processing.
Finally, the winery has developed, again in collaboration with the University of Palermo, a new research path with a focus on the agri-food system based on Carbon Footprint and Water Footprint.
