Val d'Oca

A brief history

Val d’Oca is the name of a splendid hill covered in vineyards of Glera, the white grape variety used to make Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G. (Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin). It is a triangle in the midst of a few scattered houses and a road that climbs in zigzag fashion, skirting a wood, before arriving at the top of one of the typical hills of the Treviso Prealps, which here form a landscape that enjoys the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We are in the hilly area between Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, in the heart of the production zone of Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G., and this is just one part of the 1000 hectares of vineyards tended for generations by the 600 member growers who belong to Val d'Oca, one of the most historic and important wineries in this world-famous production zone.
Since the early 1990s, Val D’Oca has also become the trademark of the wines produced by Val d'Oca and, since 2008, also the name of the company responsible for selling them, which is 100% owned by and under the direction and organisation of the Cantina Produttori di Valdobbiadene.

VAL D'OCA: THE STORY OF A SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS
That of the winery is the story of a cooperative business, a truly socially responsible enterprise that was founded in 1952 in accordance with the wishes of its 129 founder members, post-war Italian farmers who were inspired by a desire to reconstruct their area and the local economy, damaged by the devastating scars of the Second World War. Those 129 founder members decided, together, to unite their forces and bring to life the brilliant idea, embodied then as now in a powerful spirit of cooperation that today groups together the Cantina’s 600 vine-growing members.

Val d'Oca

A brief history

The creation of the winery, apart from representing in the immediate post-war period an important opportunity to start life again for the individual associated growers, also laid down the basis for the development and maintenance of quality in the wine of Valdobbiadene. Economic growth was constant, as was the continual subscription of new members. These small landowners understood the importance of sharing objectives and resources for healthy, sustainable growth, which distributed in an equitable manner responsibilities and successes, creating a virtuous model of a socially responsible business and thereby pre-empting by over half a century the trends that are today extremely current in the job market and in models of running a company. This was to a large extent due to their strong farming DNA.

Over the course of time, this sharing of resources has led to an assiduous effort geared towards continuously improving grape quality, further enhanced by an acute entrepreneurial mentality that has led to the winery being equipped with avant garde technology. The growing number of members has allowed the Cantina, whilst remaining faithful to a respect for high product quality and for the demanding requests of the consumer, to produce an ever-growing number of bottles.

Its strength as a socially responsible business also enabled it to set up, in 1990, a well-structured sales network and avail itself of modern marketing strategies, becoming a leading protagonist in the marketplace: it was the first, for example, (in 1998) to use a satin-finish black bottle - which a year later won the award for best packaging at Vinitaly and is still one of the company’s icons - for the Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze D.O.C.G., the Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G. Brut and the Vintage Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G. Extra Dry. It was also one of the first firms to create its own e-commerce department, in 2012.

The dialogue between the Directors and members continues to form the basis for the constant growth that still characterises the company today: shared, courageous, far-sighted business decisions have created great enthusiasm, taking the Cantina towards a future as a 4.0 company. In the last few years, important investments have allowed Val d'Oca to completely update its technological plant in the department for grape reception, pressing, clarification, vinification and prise de mousse: in other words, all the fundamental stages for maintaining and highlighting the quality of the grapes, from the vineyard to the glass. These investments are still taking place (in 2020) with the arrival of a new battery of fermentation vats and new autoclaves (pressurized tanks).

In May 2018, with an investment of 13 million Euro, the new, cutting-edge logistical facility was inaugurated: an avant garde, totally automated warehouse up to 14 metres below ground, capable of holding 7 thousand pallets, which are managed with 2 stacker cranes and 5 shuttles. From here the materials that are necessary are taken and supplied to the production lines, and here too are stocked the bottles when they are ready for consignment: they remain at a controlled temperature in an environment that instils wellbeing, accompanied by Gregorian chants broadcast at 432 Hz.

Another distinctive aspect is the total integration between the production and bottling, warehousing and management softwares. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the automated warehouse is able to work autonomously during the night, replenishing stocks based on the movements of the previous day and the programmed day’s production ahead. These aspects make this new plant one of the most advanced sites in the wine production sector, and state-of-the-art too in terms of environmental sustainability and ecological impact.

Satellite mapping of the members’ vineyards allows for a constant flow of information from the vineyards to the winery and vice versa, such as for example the processing of data from the little weather stations dotted around the area, which allows the company to suggest to each individual grower the best time to harvest. Training courses and sharing - in real time - of information and novelties regarding production keep the member growers up to date, also with the use of chat lines that take advantage of the modern communication platforms.

During 2020 work was taking place to complete the logistical facility with a second, brand-new bottling line, which works in a perfectly integrated way with the automated warehouse. Adjacent to the winery, an impressive battery of stainless steel fermentation vats is being constructed below the level of the road, so as to be perfectly integrated in the surrounding countryside: 20 have already been installed and there will more in future as well, eventually becoming 40. In 2020 the new photovoltaic plant of around 450 KW/h installed on the roof of the new logistical facility become operational, providing self-sufficiency in terms of electrical energy. All of these interventions, some of which come under the Wine CMO programme and the Ministry for Economic Development’s Industry 4.0 Plan, have been conceived and implemented in order to make Val d'Oca a perfect paradigm of a 4.0 business. Logistics, warehousing, management and vineyards: all of the actors in the production process will form part of a network to collaborate and communicate among themselves and with the outside world, providing the necessary data to achieve production that is ever more integrated, efficient and of high quality, a goal which, in the mid-20th century when the Cantina rose from the ashes of the Second World War, would have seemed a pipe dream to the 129 founder members.

The company’s mission today – as it was from the very beginning – is still to express all the premium characteristics of the grapes supplied by our members, maintaining a high level of quality from the operations in the vineyard to the harvest, from delivering the grapes to vinification, from bottling to the glass. An incentive system rewards at each harvest those growers whose grapes have attained levels of quality that are even higher than the strict standards laid down by the Cantina. By rewarding the hard work, competence and collaboration of the members, high-quality wines are produced, resulting from the choral efforts of a company that has always combined a profoundly agricultural spirit with a clear entrepreneurial vision and a quest for sustainable development. In order to attain this objective, the Cantina guarantees all its members continuing technical support from highly qualified agronomists and other professionals, who accompany them in the vineyard and are able to intervene swiftly at every stage, so that the growers arrive with top-quality fruit at harvest time.

The vineyards represent a unique patrimony for Val d'Oca. Of the almost 1000 hectares in total, more than half lie in the outstanding areas of the Valdobbiadene and Asolo D.O.C.G.s, including those subzones that are considered “cru”: Cartizze and the “Rive”. Here, the grapes come from very steep vineyards that call for a lot of exhausting manual work on the part of the growers (more than 600 hours/hectare compared to the 150 hours/hectare in the mechanized vineyards on the plain) and reach a level of quality that is recognised as being even higher: for this reason the specific geographical site appears on the label. The particular quality of its grapes, guaranteed above all by the geographical concentration of its vineyards in the most celebrated vineyard zones, makes the Cantina Produttori di Valdobbiadene one of the principal driving forces in the whole of the production area’s constant progress towards excellence.

In 2019 the Cantina Produttori di Valdobbiadene obtained VIVA CERTIFICATION, the standard developed by the Ministry of the Environment and Protection of the Land and Sea in conjunction with the OPERA (European Observatory for Sustainable Agriculture) Research Centre of the “Cattolica del Sacro Cuore” University. VIVA Certification was created to measure the sustainability performances of the viti-vinicultural sector and their improvement, by means of analysing 4 indexes. In the case of the Cantina Produttori di Valdobbiadene, 3 such indicators were considered: Air, Water and Terroir.

This result has been made possible by the group’s investments, which have focused on efficient, avant garde production processes and on modern, integrated buildings, naturally as well as on the training and innovation guaranteed by centres of excellence such as the School of Oenology in Conegliano, the Conegliano branch of the Economic Observatory of the Interdepartmental Centre for Research in Viticulture and Oenology (C.I.R.V.E) of the University of Padua, and the Research Centre of the Sparkling Wine District.

Val d'Oca is located in one of the most extraordinary and atmospheric landscapes in Italy, the hilly area between Asolo and Conegliano, which has always had a particular vocation for viticulture and since 2019 is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Prosecco Wine Road is a well-known route that offers unique emotions: lying between the historic towns of Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, this itinerary takes the visitor on a voyage to explore the area in which Prosecco Superiore D.O.C.G., Prosecco D.O.C.G. Rive and the prestigious Superiore di Cartizze D.O.C.G. are produced, all of which are types of wine that Val d'Oca can offer. Tradition and a passion for growing grapes are recurring elements in this highly attractive zone, and Val d'Oca embodies them perfectly, as it was created originally as a direct expression of the work of hundreds of families of farmers, who have made up the principal social fabric of this area for generations. It is a zone that can boast of being not only a point of reference for local viticulture and wine production from an employment point of view, but also a leading economic district thanks to the collateral activities generated by the sector. Today, just as when the vinery was founded, its member growers continue to be custodians of a large part of this area.

Since 2011, the Val D'Oca 'Wine Center' has been open to the public, here people can buy our wines and learn more about the production process for Prosecco. Inside the building that contains the Store there is also a large, bright room with a kitchen next door, used throughout the year as a venue for well-established events that are open to the public, tutored tastings and food pairing, in which the Cantina’s sparkling wines are matched with the dishes of famous chefs, and often together with other local gastronomic specialities. The view from the windows and the terrace embraces a large part of the surrounding countryside, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Val d'Oca is also characterised by the particular architecture of the building that is open to the public, whose façade is an effervescent hymn to Prosecco. The perforated aluminium panelling is decorated with a motif that is reminiscent of the perlage of Prosecco, the wine that is the hallmark of the winery and that has made the surrounding hills famous all over the world. At night, the building becomes a luminescent box, decorated with multicoloured bands of LED lights that pervade the “bubbles” on the panels, making them into a sort of luminous sign for the Val d’Oca winery. The building was designed with particular attention to saving energy: most of the building’s needs are satisfied by energy from renewable sources. An amorphous silicon photovoltaic plant integrated in the roof, exterior insulation, the use of windows in solar control glass, and reversible heat pumps and geothermal probes for the heating system complete the building’s identikit.