Viribus Unitis - with united forces: the advantages of the cooperative.

Outstanding wine is made in the vineyard. That’s why we consider our members – who do the vineyard work – to be the protagonists. For generations, they have cultivated a special connection to their vineyards, and know every single grapevine. This invaluable knowledge, paired with the small structure of our winery, offers the best prerequisites for the production of unique, characterful wines.

The relation between farmer and cooperative is very tight. Each farmer is consistently in touch with the cooperative trough educational lectures and workshops, vineyard visits, vineyard monitoring, general assembly, quarterly newspaper and other activities. At Cantina Kurtatsch we have an own agronomist who takes care of our famers. While the connection between winery and grower is the most important and at the same time the most sensitive factor, the advantages of such a small scaled cooperative are huge:

Access and selection of vineyards
While a family owned winery might have great vineyards for 1, 2 or 3 varieties, we are able to make wines from top Cru vineyards of all of our 12 varieties. Even within one CRU vineyard we can select only the best plots and by small vinification of each plot we have an enormous quality advantage.

Flexibility
Especially in difficult weather conditions (an unforeseen rainy day in the harvest, high mildew pressure in the vineyards,..) flexibility is king: We can send out an alert SMS to our famers and they call together their family (or in some cases their few employees) to do an immediate task (for example harvest). In this way we can get important tasks done in very little time.

Economic sustainability
Being a cooperative we work on a non profit basis as all what we earn goes back to our farmers. The better we make the wines and the better they sell in the market, the better our farmers get paid and the better is the recognition of the town of Kurtatsch (Cortaccia). A cooperative is one of the most sustainable types of business!

Social sustainability 
Out of 2000 inhabitants of the unique viticultural town of Kurtatsch, 160 families are member of our cooperative (30 growers come from the neighboring villages). 80% of our vineyards are in Kurtatsch (all varieties beside Pinot Nero – they prefer the cooler, other part of the valley across from Kurtatsch). Every action affects the economic situation of our home town, therefore every action is based on a long term strategy in order to leave most resources for future generations.