The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry stated on the island of Pico that the Regional Government will soon approve a series of measures to revitalise the wine sector, helping this sector to mitigate the different effects caused by the pandemic. 

“A series of exceptional measures are being prepared with the aim of supporting the acquisition of more wine storage units and enabling the emergency distillation of wine into brandy in order to free up space to store the wine from the next harvest,” said João Ponte, who spoke on the sidelines of a meeting with the Board of Pico Winery Cooperative. 

In turn, the government official noted that there will also be measures designed to increase the liquidity of cooperatives and operators by supporting the storage of liqueur wines and table wines bearing the Designation of Origin (DO) and Geographical Indication (IG) certifications, as well as measures to support and promote the marketing of certified wines. 

“These measures, which will be approved and published very soon, are very important to revitalise the wine sector and minimise the impacts caused by the pandemic. 
In supporting cooperatives and operators in the wine processing sector, we are helping producers,” João Ponte said, recalling that the Regional Government has been monitoring the impacts of the pandemic on the sector from the very first hour. 

As part of this visit to Pico, the Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry met Thursday with the President of the Azores Regional Wine Commission (CVR). Despite the constraints affecting its operation in the last three months, this entity has already managed to certify 200 thousand litres of wine, which corresponds to about one third of the production suitable for certification. 

Moreover, the government official also stressed the major effort undertaken by the Regional Government to guarantee, under POSEI, the payment of all aid to producers with wine suitable for the Designation of Origin (DO) certification. At the end of June, 90% of the aid will be paid to producers with vineyards suitable for the Geographical Indication (GI) certification. 

“Overall, the POSEI aid will grant more than one million euros for the wine sector, a very important amount for the maintenance of this activity, which has very high production costs,” stressed João Ponte. In this regard, he highlighted all efforts that have been undertaken by producers and the public investment in the development of this sector that creates jobs and generates wealth.