1969: the first 52 “Rauscedo” clones were officially homologated, while in the 1980’s the Company started some joint ventures in foreign countries. Of course Europe was at hand, and the Cooperative took agreements with “Agromillora Catalana” for the marketing of VCR products, then in 1989 with the Greek Company “Vitrohellas” and in 1996 with the Californian “Nova Vine”, while in 2000’s it was the turn of Australia and France. This is the reason why over 35% of the total production is exported, including China and India in the last years, and in 2006 they could boast the homologation of the 225th clone!

Walking throughout the hangars, you can tell how much room and laborwork are required. As you can see in the pictures, grapevines need to be properly cut for the grafting, then they are dipped in paraffin to prevent moulds and bacterias. A whole area is refrigerated to store the grapevines, ready to be used or shipped abroad, with a maximum capacity of 70 million ones.

But who provides the rootstocks? The Company, which grows American ones in special nurseries. We drove shortly to a cultivated area surrounded by labs meant for the cloning. When Philloxera broke out in the mid-XIXth cent. most of our vineyard were heavily affected by the bug which killed the roots. It was found that American rootstocks and vines were able to adapt and survive the desease, so most of the grapes used today were imported from Usa, and successfully prospered in Europe. This is the reason why the same plants are grown now, and exploited for the grafting, while original vines are still supplied by the Associates, who don’t live in the Friuli only, but throughout Italy. Lots of clones have been already widely experimented, but scientific research progressed and found new biotypes from the same wine grape cultivar.

These are selected according to improving aspects, such as the production capacity, the quality potential etc. Therefore they need to be grown, processed into wine, so the expectations will be fully checked.

As you know, each grape requires the proper soil, exposure, climate, and care. When our escort mentioned the total nursery surface, I was pretty surprised, about 2500 acres!

Of course they weren’t located there, they are in Veneto, Puglia, Toscana, among the most gifted wine regions in the country!

A few weeks ago I went to Rauscedo, a small town in the Friuli Venezia-Giulia region, on the border with Slovenia and Croatia. This area is renowned for excellent white wines from distinct grapes, most of them are original, that is widely grown in the last centuries. A real opportunity for me to increase my knowledge of the origins of wine from the plant, and an successful example of cooperation and solidarity among 200 associates. Rauscedo was already a country village -”borgo”- in the XIIIth cent., based nearby the river Meduna, which caused over the centuries may floodings and forced the natives to move, come back, start the crop growing again, in a constant effort to stay forever in such a fertile land. It took a long time to improve, in fact the lifestyle of the peasants got better in the early 1920’s, when they realized they’d never work it out without the help of the whole village. In those years an early nucleus of natives started to grow vines but didn’t start any Company.

According to the anecdotes told by ancestors, it was an Officer of the Royal Italian Army who taught a peasant the benchdrafting tachnique, in the hope to improve his life and the one of the family. The year 1933 was crucial, since the Company was officially established, but the Second Worls War didn’t help the business which nearly collapsed. At the end of it, Italy was in ruins but Italians were relieved by the regained peace and invested on their own skills and traditional crafts.

In 1948 the Company produced 3 million grafted cuttings, so that immigrants who had left Friuli before the War, came back home and renewed the local production. Today it amounts to 65 million a year, garanteede by 200 Associates able to assure a helathy, long-lived and high quality vines for great wines.

The 1950’s and 60’s marked the development of the economy and the national industry, so that winemakers realized how important was to use productive and deasease resistant vines. The range of different grapes in Italy was very varied, while Estates were too small for the production of many different wines. In 1968 the Vivai Rauscedo established an Experimental centre charge for the scientific selection of the best clones of the main national grapes used.