Italy’s entire food culture gains UNESCO listing
Italy’s cuisine has been recognised with a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage listing, with its diverse wines deemed a part of that rich gastronomic fabric.
The status, announced on Wednesday (10 December), has previously been awarded to the likes of Neapolitan pizza and opera singing, but marks the first time a country has been recognised for its cuisine in its entirety.
As such, Italian cuisine, and the wine embedded within that culture, is now considered a ‘living heritage’ by UNESCO.
While the main focus of this new listing is clearly food-based, it does more broadly help with recognition of wine’s cultural importance within gastronomy.
Previous listings have tended to focus on specific practices such as the traditional qvevri winemaking methods of Georgia, or Italy’s own head-trained bush vines of Pantelleria and the landscape itself of the hilly Prosecco vineyard heartlands.
The new elevation follows a successful application by the Italian government to have Italian cuisine recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, and now means that various UNESCO safeguarding, good practice and support initiatives will look to embed and preserve Italian gastronomic traditions for future generations.
While no-one in the trade is expecting a notable uplift of Italian wine sales, it is certain that a fair few glasses of vino will have been raised across Italy at the news and such recognition can only boost respect for Italy's already popular gastronomic status.
“The UNESCO listing is great news for Italian food and wine, and recognition of the changes that have happened in the past few decades. Italian food and wine remain regional rather than national, something which is important to retain and encourage in an increasingly homogenised world”, said David Gleave MW, chairman of Italian champion Liberty Wines.
“I don’t think we’ll see a direct link between the UNESCO listing and an increase in sales, but it will help sustain interest in Italy’s indigenous varieties and unique styles of wine. This authenticity is an important aspect of what people are searching for in today’s wine world, so it should help sustain Italy’s place in the market”.
Gleave added that the UNESCO status, which is designed to encourage sustainability for future generations, could only help with the strides that Italian producers are already making to protect the source and thus quality of their food and wine production.
Picture credit: Pixabey
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