Pruning Festival 2024
March 16, 2024 Agricola San Felice - Chianti Classico
Designed and organized by Simonit&Sirch
It will be a great day of celebration among the vines, open to all those who love nature and “savoir faire” in the countryside, the 2nd Pruner Festival to be held on March 16, 2024 in Castelnuovo Berardenga (SI). Surrounding the hard-fought and exciting vine pruning competition that will award the best pruners in Italy, there will be many, and unusual, events that will allow adults and children alike to spend a pleasant day outdoors.
After the great success of the first edition, held on March 9, 2019 in Franciacorta, Chianti Classico will host the event, conceived and organized by Simonit&Sirch. The Pruning Contest will take place in the vineyards of San Felice, a leading winery in the area and partner of the Festival, which has been applying the Simonit&Sirch Pruning Method for years and hosts the courses of the Italian School of Vine Pruning.
The competition is open to all who wish to show their skills in a competition that will reward accuracy of cuts and speed. 100 pruners will take part, competing individually (55) and in teams (15 teams of 3 members). Speaker of the competition will be Francesco Quarna of Radio Deejay. The public will be able to observe the competitors intent on pruning plants up close. The panel of judges, consisting of Simonit&Sirch technicians and international pruning experts, will decide the top finishers in the two categories.
Sign up to participate
Only the use of hand scissors is allowed according to the deliveries given in the pre-race brief by the jury. The definition of the classification is based on accuracy and cutting technique according to the Simonit&Sirch method.
Winner’s Message
Marco I personally wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for Saturday, it was an incredible experience, I grew up with my grandparents among the vineyards of Franciacorta and I always wanted to do this job. Winning Saturday was like making a dream come true.
I showed the photos to my 80-year-old grandfather and he burst into tears proud of me as a child. Thank you indeed, you have given me immense joy, satisfaction on a personal level unparalleled.
With much esteem, Marco Bergoli
Marco Bergoli
1st Place Single Race
1st Ed. Pruner Festival – Franciacorta
Party and side activities
The Pruning Contest will be the centerpiece of a day-long country celebration dedicated to “vineyard know-how” open-with free admission-to everyone, pruners, families, friends and enthusiasts.
The day will kick off for competitors at 8 a.m. with a blessing to the pruners by the parish priest of Castelnuovo Berardenga, which will be followed by the Pruner’s Breakfast, organized by the Diversamente Eroici association. The competitions will begin at 10 a.m., when all the side activities will also start. In fact, to surround the competitions are in program music, themed stalls and a range of farm-related activities , including workshops with artisans intent on their traditional crafts and the FELCO Scissors Atelier, a world-leading company in the field, offering a comprehensive and unique maintenance service for your manual scissors.
Main sponsor of the event will also be for this edition FINE+RARE of London, which has been a leader in buying, selling and managing private wineries since 1994, enabling the global audience of collectors, to have access to the finest products.
The Pruner Festival enjoys the patronage of the Chianti Classico Consortium, the Municipality of Castelnuovo Berardenga and theASA Italian Agribusiness Press Association.
Program
8:00 Blessing to the pruners
8:15 a.m. Pruner’s Breakfast with the Differently Heroic
8:30 a.m. Accreditation of participants in the Pruning Contest
9 a.m. Pruner’s Walk, San Felice-Castello di Brolio
9 a.m. Sponsor booth opening
9:00 a.m. Pre-race Briefing Pruning Contest
10 a.m. Pruning Contest – single race (qualifying)
10 a.m. Opening of side activities
10:30 a.m. The Lumberjack Athletes show
11 a.m. Slalom freestyle show – Lorenzo Guslandi
11:30 a.m. Pruning Contest – team competition
12:30 p.m. The Lumberjack Athletes show
1 p.m. Da Move – Freestyle Sport-Mix Show
13.30 Chianti Classico Consortium Tastings
2:15 p.m. Pruning Contest – single competition (final)
2:45 p.m. Slalom freestyle show – Lorenzo Guslandi
15.00 Demonstration of dendrosurgery
3:15 p.m. The Lumberjack Athletes show
3:45 p.m. Awards
16.00 Readings and musical tasting with Omar Pedrini
17.00 Closing Festival
Organizing the Vine Pruning Festival are Simonit&Sirch (who came up with it, the first and only in Italy, in 2019), who have developed a pruning method that makes vines stronger and longer-lived, and have successfully exported it all over the world. Indeed, pruning vines is one of the winemaker’s most difficult and delicate tasks: the health, robustness and longevity of the plants, and consequently the production and quality of the wines, can depend on it.
“The Municipality of Castelnuovo Berardenga,” says the mayor, Fabrizio Nepi, “has welcomed with great pleasure and satisfaction the request to host the second edition of the Vine Pruner Festival, which comes to Tuscany for the first time, and I thank Simonit&Sirch for choosing the Castelnuovo Berardenga territory. This event focuses on viticulture, which is one of our main resources and excellences, as well as fundamental to the economic development of the territory, and invests in quality techniques and attention to the environment and landscape. With these assumptions, we couldn’t help but welcome an event that will be another opportunity to raise awareness and promote Castelnuovo Berardenga and Chianti, turning the spotlight on elements that make our territory unique and famous throughout the world.”
“We chose Chianti, because the Festival is an itinerant event, taking place every year in one of the great Italian wine regions, and Tuscany could only be among the first to host it,” Simonit&Sirch added, “With this event we intend to reiterate the centrality of man and know-how in the vineyard for fine viticulture. The longevity and healthiness of the vines, a necessary prerequisite for having great and distinctive wines, pass through the hands and experience of man. So we compare, in a positively competitive and sporting context, the pruners on whose work (sustainable and environmentally friendly) the healthiness and productive and qualitative performance of the vines largely depend. For them, and for us who train them, the Festival is a pleasant, vital and fun time of meeting and growth.”
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