Com_St_2015_10_13_Giardino-Pantesco-Premio-Paesaggio-ENG.pdf
The Ministry of Cultural Heritage recognizes the value of the garden of Pantelleria donated by Donnafugata to FAI as a testimony to rural wisdom.
A new and important recognition for the Sicilian company’s commitment to the territory comes from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage that has evaluated the Pantellerian Garden (Giardino Pantesco)Donnafugataas an important testimony to ancient rural wisdom.
The Pantellerian Garden that Donnafugata restored and donated in 2008 to FAI (Fondo Ambiente Italiano – the Italian National Trust) is located in the splendid natural amphitheater of Contrada Khamma, on Pantelleria.
Included in the visit to Donnafugata’s vineyards and winery, every year the Garden is visited by more than 2,000 lovers of quality wine, eager to discover the secrets of the heroic viticulture and agriculture of the island of the sun and the wind.
In order to cultivate citruses in a “hostile” environment such as that of Pantelleria – windy and lacking in water sources – the Pantellerian farmer created this very special type of garden: a circular construction in dry laid lava stone, 4 meters high and with a diameter of more than 10 meters. Like a tower-fortress, the Giardino Pantesco Donnafugata – the fruit of great talent and effort – ensures an ideal microclimate for a centuries-old orange tree: it protects the plant from the wind, it creates a cone of shadow that reduces its transpiration, it collects dew and releases it into the ground. An agronomic system self-sufficient in terms of water, which testifies well to man’s ability to adapt to the harsh conditions on this strip of volcanic land.
The encomium was given to the Giardino Pantesco Donnafugata in the context of Italy’s participation in the Landscape Award of the Council of Europe and took into account the fact that the garden, and the dammusi and the alberello vine, are still today constituent elements of the landscape, history and culture of the island and, more generally, of the Mediterranean civilization.
The Pantellerian Garden was therefore awarded for its ability to characterize the landscape, where – as in the case of Pantelleria – landscape and agriculture have been living in extraordinary symbiosis since time immemorial: from the garden for citruses, to the dry stone walls and the terraces for the cultivation of the alberello vine.
The recognition given to the Pantellerian Garden is added to the extremely prestigious one given by UNESCO to the agricultural practice of the alberello vine of Zibibbo di Pantelleria, that became World Heritage in 2014.
PUBLIC RELATION
Baldo M. Palermo [email protected] phone +39 0923 724226
Laura Ellwanger: [email protected] phone. +39 0923 724258
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Nando Calaciura [email protected] mob. +39 338 3229837
