Liquorice, bergamot and broom are just some of the scents that characterise Calabria, and that can also be found in its wines. And they are just some of the products that can be discovered by visiting the region's company museums, which, thanks to an idea by Nicodemo Librandi, have given rise to the network Sud heritage.

These are "places that enhance an important productive reality, but also serve to encourage experimentation and innovation", to use the words of Sud heritage president Florindo Rubbettino. It all started with the Vites museum, a space dedicated to viticulture, territory and history, located within one of the estates of the Librandi winery: the Rosaneti estate, in Rocca di Neto, in the province of Crotone.

The Librandi Vites museum between past, present and future of wine-growing

The Vites museum aims to keep the memory of local wine culture alive, in order to understand how traditional farming practices can be brought up to date to ensure a future for the world of the vine and wine, in respect of the territory and biodiversity.

The space is divided into eight rooms that illustrate the past, present and future of wine-growing and house a vast collection of tools and records gathered over the years by the Librandi family and other local families.

1. The origins of viticulture in Calabria
2. Planting the vineyard and working the land
3. Managing and tending the vineyard
4. The harvest
5. The cooper
6. The cellar
7. The palmento (traditional wine press)
8. Bottling and tasting

The role of regenerative agriculture

"The museum bears witness to an era when a family's income depended entirely on a small plot of land: keeping it healthy was essential, thanks to customs that, today more than ever, have come back into relevance", explains Paolo Librandi, one of Nicodemo's sons, who runs the winery together with his brother and cousins. The family tends to over 200 hectares of vineyard, spread across six estates, four of which fall within the DOC Cirò. The Rosaneti estate, the largest, also boasts eighty hectares of olive groves.

Agricultural production today is threatened by the climate crisis. Calabria is among the Italian regions where viticulture is suffering the worst consequences of climate change, so much so that the Librandi family is having to contend with opposing phenomena, such as last year's drought and this year's frosts. Where once the "problem" was the excessive vigour of the vines, now unfortunately the opposite is true. "In some areas of Calabria, wine is no longer being made at all", recounts Paolo's brother, Raffaele.

To ward off the threat of desertification, there is nothing left to do but draw inspiration from the customs of our grandparents, many of which could today be described as nature-based solutions and fall under the definition of regenerative agriculture. Among these practices, aimed at preserving and improving soil quality, is the technique of green manuring (sovescio), which involves sowing herbaceous plants destined to be mulched and ploughed back into the ground, so that they act as natural fertilisers. These include, for example, grasses such as barley, rye or oats; crucifers such as white mustard; and legumes such as field beans, which help increase the nitrogen content of the soil and its porosity thanks to the channels left by the roots some time after mulching.

The concept of multifunctional seeding

Tradition and innovation come together when the technique of cover cropping is combined with a procedure known as Biopass (Biodiversity, landscape, environment, soil, society), which makes it possible to monitor the impact of human intervention. This method, developed by the Sata agronomic consultancy, involves various steps, including a visual assessment of the physical and structural condition of the soil (visual soil assessment) and an analysis of the microfauna present within it, as explained by Dr Marta Donna, agronomist at Sata and consultant to Librandi. Protecting the soil is the first step towards safeguarding the entire ecosystem: this is why the concept of cover cropping ultimately evolves into the broader concept of multifunctional seeding.

"The plants we sow," explains Davide De Santis, the company's chief agronomist, "also attract bees and other insects that feed on those harmful to the vines, ensuring the balance of the vineyard ecosystem." De Santis has also contributed to a study of the behaviour of nocturnal lepidoptera that frequent the vineyards, a project through which Crea aims to catalogue the species present in the area and understand how they respond to agricultural practices and climate change.

The Librandi family and the conservation of native grape varieties

"We can say that biodiversity is the missing piece of the terroir," adds Dr Donna. In oenology, this term refers to the set of elements that give rise to a wine and distinguish it from others: the particular characteristics of the grape variety, the composition of the soil, the features of the climate, and human intervention. It is to safeguard the region's native grape varieties — such as gaglioppo, magliocco dolce, greco bianco, mantonico, and other lesser-known cultivars — that the Librandi family is committed to analytically collecting and studying Calabrian viticultural germplasm, an extraordinarily rich and little-known heritage from which much can be learned in terms of climate adaptation.

From this intensive research activity came the volume Il gaglioppo e i suoi fratelli and the varietal garden of the Rosaneti estate, which currently hosts around two hundred vine varieties recovered from across the region, arranged in a vineyard with a distinctive spiral shape. The family is also committed to preserving traditional training systems such as the alberello (bush vine), which adapts perfectly to hot, drought-prone climates.

Respect for nature

Other practices aimed at respecting nature include shallow soil tillage, which promotes water retention; vine pruning that respects the plant, carried out without cutting into the parts through which sap flows; and field grafting, which involves grafting new canes onto rootstocks that have developed in situ, rather than in a nursery.

And one must not forget that, in order to reduce the impact of agriculture, action can also be taken beyond the fields: the Librandi family, for example, has installed a photovoltaic system that meets much of the estate's energy needs, and has reduced the weight of its 750 ml bottles. Thanks to collaboration with other entrepreneurs, the by-products of wine production are transformed into distillates, energy and biodigestate, in keeping with a circular economy approach.

The goal, in short, is to give back to the land everything it gives us. And so, when we are struck by the scent of bergamot in a glass of white, or the aroma of liquorice in a glass of red, we will be reminded that behind every bottle of wine lies a unique interpretation of the relationship between human beings and nature.