Sicily DOC wines, Alessio Planeta at the head of the Consortium

At the same time, however, the new president's message does not stop at diagnosis. On the contrary, he tries to indicate some very precise directions. The first concerns sustainability. Sicily, the Consortium recalls, is today the largest organic wine-growing area in Italia: it accounts for 30% of the national organic wine area and has over 42 thousand hectares cultivated according to organic or integrated production regulations. This is a fact that has not only environmental weight, but also economic and reputational, because it allows the island to present itself on the markets with a profile that is now well recognisable.

The second guideline is that of biodiversity. Sicily has a vast varietal heritage, capable of speaking to different audiences and holding tradition and contemporaneity together. It is a capital that, in Planeta's intentions, must become even more of a strategic lever to strengthen the recognisability of DOC Sicily and to consolidate the link between wine and territory.

The third is perhaps the most interesting in terms of narrative and overall positioning: wine tourism. Planeta insists that Sicily's growing tourist success is a driving force for the wine sector. More and more visitors, he observes, are discovering the territory precisely through wine. And it is here that the new president places the most politically and culturally significant sentence of his speech: 'Let's protect the name Sicily, which is strongly evocative: we should be able to bring back into the glass the reputation that Sicily has in tourism, culture and food'.

In this formula there is much of the programme that seems to be taking shape. The idea is that the strength of the name Sicily is already consolidated in the external imagination thanks to tourism, cuisine, landscape and culture, but that this symbolic heritage must be translated even more into perceived value for wine. In other words: the denomination must not limit itself to certifying the origin, but must become the point of synthesis of a broader territorial reputation.

This is not a secondary challenge, because wine Sicily is great precisely because it is plural. Planeta himself emphasises this when he writes that Sicilia Doc encompasses 'all the souls of Sicilian wine', from cooperation to verticalised companies. It is a plurality that must be governed, harmonised and made readable. The reference to the choir that must express itself as 'a true orchestra' is not just an effective image: it says well what the mission of this new presidency will be, that is to hold together production, territorial and dimensional differences within a common vision.

Planeta's profile, moreover, lends itself well to this function. Born in 1966, with a degree in Agricultural Sciences, Planeta's CEO since 1991, he is one of the names that have contributed most to the international positioning of Sicilian wine in recent decades. He was president of Assovini Sicilia from 2017 to 2020, is a member of the board of directors of the Doc Sicilia Consortium, and was appointed Aggregate Academician of the Georgofili Academy in 2012. His entrepreneurial path and the international recognition he has obtained over the years reinforce the significance of an appointment that comes at a strategic stage.

More than a simple change of chair, therefore, that of Alessio Planeta appears to be a choice that tries to hold together continuity and relaunch. Continuity, because the Consortium confirms its structure and claims the work done from 2012 to date. Relaunch, because the new chairman comes with the ambition of strengthening the role of DOC Sicilia as an identity and quality reference point for the island's wine, within a framework that not only concerns the markets but also the way in which Sicily wants to tell its story through one of its most symbolic products.