Natural, sustainable and cruelty-free. Wineleather is an entirely Italian plant-based leather derived from the waste produced during winemaking.
Winner of the Global Change Award, the competition launched by the H&M Foundation to support the pioneers of sustainable fashion, Wineleather is a project that saves grape marc from wine production by repurposing it to create a one hundred per cent natural, cruelty-free faux leather.
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The idea began with Gianpiero Tessitore, an architect who, finding no natural materials available to upholster the sofas, armchairs and other accessories he designed, decided to find a low-environmental-impact solution. "The need arose to create an alternative to the usual animal and synthetic leathers, which cause pollution during their production process and disposal due to the use of non-renewable and impactful substances," explains Tessitore.
Together with a series of specialised research centres, his in-depth study began in 2014 and culminated, thanks to the contribution of environmental chemist and University of Florence consultant Francesco Merlino, in the discovery of the great potential of grape marc, which contains fibres and oils ideally suited for use in the production of a plant-based faux leather. So, after two years of experimentation, Wineleather is now awaiting the integration of its patent, exclusively made in Italy.
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From around 26 billion litres of wine produced worldwide every year, it is possible to obtain almost 7 billion kilograms of grape marc to be used in the production of approximately 3 billion square metres of Wineleather (equivalent to 400,000 football pitches).
The figures are very promising in a country like ours, where wine is one of the most profitable products for the national economy, especially in terms of exports. "Today Italy is the largest wine producer, holding around 18 per cent of global production. This, of course, plays a hugely important role in making our country the ideal territory for processing Wineleather."
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Wineleather is a venture that fits perfectly between two already existing but hitherto interdependent supply chains, the agri-food industry and the tanning industry, which provide the raw material and the equipment for production respectively. "Our project is highly scalable in Italy, also thanks to the fact that we can use some machinery already in place at companies that produce animal and synthetic leather, making specific modifications to adapt it to our production process."
It is therefore an absolutely sustainable project, or better still "a circular economy model linked to the wine supply chain, in a scenario where waste becomes the resource that gives rise to an innovative product of great added value" for the tanning industry and the entire world of fashion.