Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation

for wine and vinegar production in central Italy
P. Bartocci a, *, P. Fantozzi b, F. Fantozzi a
a
Department of Engineering, University of Perugia, Via G. Duranti, 06125, Perugia, Italy
b
Department of Economics and Food Sciences, Section of Food Technology and Biotechnology, University of Perugia, Via S. Costanzo n.c.n., 06126 Perugia,
Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The contribution of the European food sector to the total amount of greenhouse gases emissions is equal
Received 11 December 2015 to one fifth. Footprint indicators together with Life Cycle Assessment have emerged to be useful tools to
Received in revised form analyze and report environmental performance. In this paper the environmental impact of aged vinegar
28 March 2016
produced from Grechetto and Sagrantino grapes varieties is analyzed. Life Cycle Assessment of wine is
Accepted 21 April 2016
Available online xxx
performed to calibrate the model. Impact assessment is studied evaluating: carbon footprint, ecological
footprint, water footprint, acidification, eutrophication, ozone layer depletion, photochemical oxidation.
The new approach proposed in this paper leads to the obtainment of a complete analysis of the impact of
Keywords:
Carbon footprint
aged vinegar, which can help a small farm choose more sustainable production methods, also optimizing
Ecological footprint logistics. This is the scientific added value of the work. The results show that aged vinegar has a carbon
Water footprint footprint comprised between 1.94 and 2.54 kg CO2/l. The Ecological footprint of aged vinegar varies
LCA between 9.83 and 13.23 g m2/kg. The Water Footprint of aged vinegar varies between 1332 and 1892 l/l.
Wine The water scarcity weighted water footprint methods available in the software SimaPro 8 give different
Vinegar results depending on their assumptions. These can be useful for comparative studies between different
products.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The contribution of the European food sector to the total
amount of greenhouse gases emissions is equal to one fifth (Olivier
et al., 2013). Footprint indicators together with Life Cycle Assess-
ment have emerged to be useful tools to analyze and report envi-
ronmental performance (Ridoutt et al., 2015, 2016; Sonesson et al.,
2010). SimaPro software version 8 has come up with different in-
dicators of water footprint sustainability. Despite this there is a
huge debate between the LCA community and the water resources
community on the possible integration of the water footprint in
LCA software. As it is reported in Hoekstra (2016) water scarcity
weighted water footprint approach is quite different from volu-
metric footprint, for the following reasons: the global scale of water
scarcity; the scarce consideration of green water consumption; the
fact that the WF of a project can be affected by the WFs of other
projects; the fact that LCA treatment of WF is inconsistent with how
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ39 075 585 37 73; fax: þ39 075 515 33 21.
E-mail address: bartocci@crbnet.it (P. Bartocci).
other footprints are defined; the fact that Water Stress Index lacks
meaningful physical interpretation. In this work both indexes are
calculated: volumetric water footprint and characterized water
footprint, following different methods available in the LCA soft-
ware. They are applied to food production.
Italy in fact is the world leader in Protected Designation of
Origin products. It has 283 products that are certified and protected
by the European Union for their particular origin (166 PDO, 115 PGI,
2 TSG, according to MIPAF, 2016). Sagrantino is an Italian grape
variety that is indigenous to the region of Umbria in Central Italy. It
is grown primarily in the village of Montefalco and its surrounding
areas, with only 250 acres (100 ha) dedicated to the grape in the
hands of 56 producers (according to the website of Consorzio
Montefalco, 2016). With such small production, the wine is not
widely known outside of Italy, although it was granted DOCG status
in 1991. Grechetto is a white wine grape variety of Greek origin. It is
primarily a blending grape, though some varietal wine is also
produced. In Italy, the Grechetto grape is found in DOCs of the
central region, most notably Umbria's Orvieto region.
Among Protected Designation of Origin products obtained from
grapes balsamic vinegar has now a magic moment. Sales increased

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
0959-6526/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
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2 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12
Nomenclature
alfa leaching-runoff fraction (e)
Appl applied chemical rate (kg/ha)
C concentration (kg/m3)
CTA consumption to availability (e)
EF ecological footprint (e)
EQF equivalence factor (e)
Et evapotranspiration (mm)
K coefficient (e)
LCA life cycle assessment (e)
T annual quantity of grapes produced (t)
WDI water depletion index (e)
12% in 2014 (ISMEA, 2012), reaching a production of 98 millions of
liters and generating an income of 700 MV.
A distinction should be made on the two most important
products; indicated as: traditional balsamic vinegar (certified DOP)
and balsamic vinegar of Modena (certified IGP). Traditional bal-
samic vinegar is a homemade vinegar produced in Italy, by tradi-
tional method in surface culture fermentation. The raw material is
cooked grape must, having a content of soluble solids (above all
glucose and fructose) ranging from 20 to 60 Bx and pH values of
2.3e3.2 (Solieri et al., 2006). As with other vinegars, it is obtained
by a two-stage fermentation process. The minimum aging period
for traditional balsamic vinegar is of 12 years (see Gullo and Giudici,
2008). Respect to the traditional balsamic vinegar the balsamic
vinegar of Modena is obtained mixing different percentages of
vinegar and cooked must. The aging period is very short (the
minimum is 60 days), compared to the 12 years required for
traditional balsamic vinegar. In this work a production process is
proposed, which is similar to that used for balsamic vinegar of
Modena, but applied to another region in Italy, for this reason the
product is not addressed as balsamic vinegar but aged vinegar.
Consumers are very attentive to the sustainability of the food
they buy, 80% of them are willing to pay more money to have wine
produced in an environmental friendly way (see Lockshin and
Corsi, 2012). For this reason TESCO has measured several Carbon
Footprints of the food it sells as reported in Fantozzi et al. (2015).
Vazquez-Rowe et al. (2013) have analyzed 9 carbon footprint
studies on wine in three European countries, using the same
methodological assumptions. Lamastra et al. (2014) have analyzed
a new approach to assess the water footprint of wine in Italy, while
Niccolucci et al. (2008) calculated the ecological footprint of
organic and conventional wine. Neto et al. (2013) performed a Life
Cycle Assessment on the supply chain of a Portuguese wine, from
viticulture to distribution.
No carbon footprint, water footprint, ecological footprint or LCA
analysis has been ever made on aged vinegar. For this reason a farm
in Umbria, central Italy, decided to set up a decentralized line for
the production of its own aged vinegar and to calculate its envi-
ronmental impact testing different indicators (Water Footprint,
Water Footprint Sustainability indicators, Ecological Footprint,
Carbon Footprint and the LCA indicator EPD, 2013 of the software
Simapro). To test the analysis, results obtained for wine and grapes
(which are ingredients in aged vinegar production) are compared
with the above cited literature studies. Two production chains are
tested: in the first Greghetto grapes are transformed in a cooper-
ative winery near the farm, while in the second Sagrantino grapes
are transformed inside the farm.
Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
WF water footprint (m3)
WSI water scarcity indicator (e)
WTA withdraw to availability (e)
Y world average grape yield (t/ha)
0 potential (e)
b bue (e)
c crop (e)
g gray (e)
max maximum (e)
nat natural (e)
v vineyard (e)
w world (e)
The novelty of the study is represented by the product (aged
vinegar) and by the approach of the study, which evaluates a huge
range of indicators to give the most complete idea of the environ-
mental impact of the product. This represents the most important
scientific value added of this paper. Starting from the presented
results, farmers can reduce the burden linked with their produc-
tion, through the use of renewable energies and agro-energy dis-
tricts designed with adequate Decision Support Tools (see
Lacquaniti and Sala, 2009; Manos et al., 2014; Fantozzi et al.,
2010). The presented results can guide investors, businesses, pub-
lic sector policymakers and even consumers of everyday goods and
services in making decisions which lead to a better environmental
outcome. Results can be presented to consumers to improve their
behavior and also to manufacturer to promote design for sustain-
able behavior (DfSB), see Polizzi di Sorrentino et al. (2016). Partic-
ular attention should be kept at minimizing food wastes during the
supply chain, according to Mirabella et al. (2014) and
Papargyropoulou et al. (2016).
2. Materials and methods
In the section about material and methods the goal and scope of
the Life Cycle study is introduced, identifying the functional unit of
the study, the boundaries, life cycle stages and Product Category
Rules (PCRs). The meteorological data used in the calculation of
green Water Footprint will also be shown. They are taken from a
meteorological station belonging to the Italian Central Office of
Agricultural Ecology (UCEA) and they refer to the growing season
2012. In the goal and scope of the study also the norms which refer
to carbon footprint, water footprint and LCA are reported, which are
respectively: ISO TS 14067 (2013), ISO 14046 (2014), ISO 14040
(2006a) and ISO 14044 (2006b). Finally the calibration of the
model is presented, results calculated for wine and grapes life cy-
cles are compared with literature data.
2.1. Goal and scope of the study
The Functional Unit of the study is represented by 1 l of produced
material. All the calculations are referred to the growing season
2011/2012. Cultivation operations for the vineyard are reported in a
registry, used during monitoring operations. Both direct emissions
and indirect emissions are taken into account in the study. Direct
emissions are defined as those generating from the use of the energy
vector, indirect emissions are those generated by the production of
the energy vector, as described in the ISO 14064 (scope 1, 2 and 3
emissions) e see ISO (2006c), ISO (2006d), ISO (2006e). Electric
 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12 3

consumptions were measured through an analyzer: PQA823 (HT
Italy complying to EN50160, see UNI EN, 2000). Mass and energy
balances were recorded in check lists. LCI calculations, Water Foot-
print (WF), Ecological Footprint (EF) and PCF calculations were made
using SimaPro software, realized by Pre  Consultants. According to
ISO 14044 (ISO, 2006b), LCI is defined as “the phase of life cycle
assessment involving the compilation and quantification of inputs
and outputs for a product throughout its life cycle”. According to ISO
14044 (ISO, 2006b), LCIA is defined as the “phase of life cycle
assessment aimed at understanding and evaluating the magnitude
and significance of the potential environmental impacts for a prod-
uct system throughout its life cycle”. The version of the software
used in this study is SimaPro 8 and it permits to perform LCA, based
on ISO 14040-44 norms (ISO, 2006a, 2006b).
In this work Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) calculation is based
on ISO 14067 (ISO, 2013). The Water Footprint was calculated ac-
cording to ISO 14046:2014, while Ecological Footprint does not
refer to a norm, but it is calculated according to Niccolucci et al.
(2008). Product Category Rules (PCRs) have been developed. The
main focus of the study is on the production of aged vinegar as
mentioned before. Aged vinegar is produced from Sagrantino and
Grechetto grapes obtained in a farm in central Italy. Grechetto
grapes are worked in a winery nearby, the resulting wine is
transported back to the farm and transformed in vinegar. Sagran-
tino grapes are pressed and transformed directly in the farm,
without transporting them to an external winery. Once boiled must
and vinegar are ready, they will be mixed and will undergo aging
for one year, then after bottling the good will be ready to be sold on
the farm market. The carbon dioxide emitted during fermentation
is not considered as an emission, according to what is reported in
Notarnicola et al. (2003). Acetification is modeled according to
what reported in Adams and Moss (2000). The boundaries of the
system are presented in Fig. 1. The impact of wine is compared with
the values reported in literature studies, to calibrate the model (see
Section 2.4).
Fig. 1 shows that in the case of the production of vinegar from
Grechetto grapes two more transports are necessary (transport 2 e
from the farm to the winery e and transport 3 e from the winery to
the farm, indicated with dashed line).
2.2. Life cycle stages and product category rules
Aged vinegar life cycle has been divided in the following stages:
grape cultivation, pressing, must boiling, vinification and acetifi-
cation (comprising fermentation and further pressing if needed and
also acetification for the production of the inoculums), aged vinegar
production, packaging. Dealing with grapes cultivation, this process
is divided in to the following phases: soil preparation, nutrient
management, phytosanitary management and harvest. In the
month of September 2012 grape harvest was performed (see Fig. 2),
during which energy consumption and grapes yields per hectare
were measured.
Once grapes harvest is completed, Grechetto variety is brought
to the winery in Bettona (a city close to the farm), in which the
grapes are pressed and vinification is performed. Electrical con-
sumptions in the winery were measured with PQA823 analyzer,
produced by HT Italy (see Fig. 3).
Sagrantino grapes were transformed in the farm. Fig. 4 shows
grape pressing and must boiling. In this case a local supply chain
has been performed with decentralized production. An electric
press was employed followed by a manual kelter.
Product category Rules (PCRs) of aged vinegar are presented in
Table 1.
As it has been mentioned above, the functional unit considered
is 1 l of aged vinegar, being vinegar a liquid good and according to
what it is reported by Rugani et al. (2013) on wine. The cut-off

Fig. 1. Aged vinegar product system (from cradle to grave).

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
4 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12

Fig. 2. Grapes harvest, year 2012.

Fig. 3. Grapes weighing (left), grapes discharge (middle) and electrical consumption monitoring (right).

Fig. 4. Grape pressing and must boiling in the farm.

threshold on Life Cycle processes is about 1%. This decision is due to
the need to simplify the process tree diagram. All the calculations
are referred to the growing season of 2011/2012, which was quite
dry, so the number of treatments in the vineyard was reduced.
Grapes pressing is a multiple product process, so allocation should
be performed in this study. Allocation is made on economic criteria;
allocation coefficients are calculated considering a price for wine
equal to 1.580 V/kg (at the winery gate) and a price for marc equal
to 0.043 V/kg (based on the prices provided by the winery). Allo-
cation based on system expansion is not feasible due to what is
reported in some PCRs (“WINE OF FRESH GRAPES, EXCEPT SPAR-
KLING WINE; GRAPE MUST” of Environdec) on wine and on the fact

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12 5

Table 1
Aged vinegar product category rules (PCRs).

Stage Rule Description

Scope & FU Scope of the study Calculate the impact of aged vinegar
System boundary The following phases are considered: cultivation, transformation,
packaging, distribution and disposal. Consumption is negligible.
Functional unit The functional unit considered is 1 l of aged vinegar
Allocation Allocation is based on economic value
Time reference Agricultural operations are referred to the growing season 2011/2012
Cut-off on LCA processes The threshold of 1% was chosen

Product definition Aged vinegar definition Aged vinegar is produced mixing 0.55 mass ratio of acetified
inoculums and 0.45 mass ratio of boiled must. Then the obtained product
is aged for one year periodically adding new boiled must.

Data collection Cultivation The following processes are comprised: fertilization, harvest, pruning,
phytosanitary treatments, shredding, irrigation, vineyard maintenance.
Also photosynthesis process is considered.
Pressing This is the process used to produce the must
Boiling must This is the fundamental process for the conservation of the must,
performed since Roman times
Wine making and acetification These processes comprise fermentation and acetification
Aged vinegar production Aging operation lasts one year
Packaging The final product is bottled in vessels of the capacity of 0.5 l

PCF calculation Software Simapro software was used to design process tree, and calculate PCF, the method used was IPCC 2013
Norm ISO TS 14067

WF calculation Software Simapro software was used to design process tree, and calculate PCF,
the methods used were (Berger et al., 2014; Boulay et al., 2011; Hoekstra et al., 2012; Pfister et al., 2009)
Norm The reference norm for water footprint is ISO 14046:2014

EF calculation Software Simapro software was used, the method was that for Ecological Footprint,
characterization used is based on two impact categories: carbon dioxide and land occupation
Norm Not available

LCA calculation Software Simparo software was used, the method was EPD 2013 (Environdec 2013).
Norm ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 were used

Results communication Label A carbon footprint label was designed for the package

that at the moment the main use of marc is to produce Grappa

(which is a grape marc spirit produced in Italy) and in this case it is
difficult to describe a substitute product.

2.3. Meteorological data sources

Meteorological data were taken from the Italian Central Office of

Agricultural Ecology (UCEA) station of Marsciano (a municipality
situated in the province of Perugia, near the farm studied). Data on
rain and potential evapotranspiration (for the vineyard growing
season 2012) are reported in Fig. 5.
Vine evapotranspiration for the growing season 2012 can be
calculated by multiplying potential evapotranspiration for the crop
coefficient.

2.4. Model calibration

The calibration of the model with literature values for the

cultivation (i.e. grapes production) phase is proposed in Table 2. It
can be seen that the values obtained in this study are similar to
those reported in literature.
Table 3 shows the calibration of the model, comparing calcu-
lated values for wine life cycle with literature values. Calibration is
required because there are no studies on the environmental impact
of aged vinegar and so model assumptions are checked comparing
the results of wine Life Cycle Assessment and of the footprints with
literature values. The results are interesting and reliable because
wine life cycle is a subset of that of aged vinegar (see Fig. 1).
Dealing with Carbon Footprint calculation, it can be seen that the
PCF of wine varies between 1.20 and 1.45 kg CO2 eq/l for Sagrantino
grapes and for Grechetto grapes, respectively. From the analysis of
Fig. 5. Rain and potential evapotranspiration trends during vine growing season
(2012).
Rugani et al. (2013) it can be inferred that the carbon footprint of red
wine is about 1.45, while that of white wine is about 1.81; these
numbers are quite similar to the ones presented in this analysis. The
water footprint of wine, calculated in this study, ranges from 889 to
1169 l/l. Lamastra et al. (2014) report a value from 928 to 1549 l/l of
wine. So the total values obtained in this study are similar to those
presented in literature. The Ecological Footprint of wine, calculated
in this study, ranges from 9.27 to 12.48 g m2/kg wine, while in the

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
6 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12

Table 2
Carbon footprint of grapes: comparison with literature values.

Carbon footprint analysis Publication Value (gCO2 eq/kg of grapes) Country of origin

Grechetto grapes carbon footprint (2012) This work 311 Italy

Sagrantino grapes carbon footprint (2012) 470 Italy

Vermentino (2009) zquez-Rowe et al., 2013

Va 219 Italy
Nova Scotia (2006) Point et al., 2012 730 Canada
Rías Baixas (2010) zquez-Rowe et al., 2012
Va 342 Spain
Monteregio di Massa Maritima (2009) Bosco et al., 2011 300 Italy
Morellino di Scansano (2009) Bosco et al., 2011 200 Italy

Table 3
Model calibration based on literature data.

Type of impact Calculated data Literature data Literature source

Carbon footprint of wine (kg CO2/l wine) 1.20/1.45a 1.45/1.81b Rugani et al., 2013
Ecological footprint of wine (g m2/kg wine) 9.27e12.48 11/22c Niccolucci et al., 2008
Water footprint of wine (l/l wine) 889/1169a 928/1549b Lamastra et al., 2014
Wine LCA: ozone layer depletion (kg CFC-11 eq/l wine) 1.03E7/1.12E7a 4.96E7 Neto et al., 2013
Wine LCA: acidification (kg SO2 eq/l wine) 0.012/0.14a 0.019 Neto et al., 2013
Wine LCA: eutrophication (kg PO4 eq/l wine) 0.0038/0.0049a 0.011 Neto et al., 2013
Wine LCA: photochemical oxidation (kg C2H4 eq/l) 3.98E5/5.89E5a 8.05E4 Neto et al., 2013
a
The first value is for Sagrantino wine, the second is for Grechetto wine.
b
The first value is for red wine, the second is for white wine.
c
The first value is for organic wine, the second is for conventional wine.

study of Niccolucci et al. (2008) values comprised between 11 and
22 g m2/kg wine are reported. The results of the EDP 2013 method
confirm those of the other indicators. The Ozone Layer Depletion
impact for wine ranges between 1.03E7 and 1.12E7 kg CFC-11 eq/
l respectively for Grechetto wine and Sagrantino wine. The study of
Neto et al. (2013) reports about 4.96E7 kg CFC-11 eq/l wine, this
confirms that the production analyzed has a lower impact, due to
the reduction in the use of chemical inputs in the cultivation phase.
The impact relative to Acidification category calculated in this study
ranges from 0.012 to 0.14 kg SO2 eq/l respectively for Sagrantino
wine and Grechetto wine. This impact is quite similar to that re-
ported in Neto et al. (2013), which is about 0.019 kg SO2 eq/l wine.
The impact relative to Eutrophication ranges from 0.0038 to
0.0049 kg PO4 eq/l respectively for Sagrantino wine and Grechetto
wine. The value calculated by Neto et al. (2013) for this impact is
about 0.011 kg PO4 eq/l wine. The value of photochemical oxidation
impact category is negative in this study. This demonstrates that the
choice of a proper packaging (glass with 6% recycling in this case)
can reduce this impact.
3. Theory and calculations
A complete evaluation of the impact of food commodities is
proposed in this work, first starting from mass and energy balances
measure. Collected data are then used to implement a Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA), different methods for water footprint calculation
are used and compared. The ecological footprint is calculated based
on SimaPro software tools. Water footprint sustainability is calcu-
lated using different methods: Boulay et al. (2011) (Water Scarcity),
Hoekstra et al. (2012) (Water Scarcity), Pfister et al. (2009) (Water
Scarcity), Berger et al. (2014).
3.1. Life cycle assessment
LCA is based on ISO 14040 (ISO, 2006a) and ISO 14044 (ISO,
2006b). Besides the indicator used for LCIA (Life Cycle Impact
Assessment) is EPD 2013 (Environdec 2013). This method is the
successor of EPD (2008) and it is used for the creation of Environ-
mental Product Declarations (EPDs), see ISO 14025 (ISO, 2006f),
developed by the International EPD® System (website: www.
environdec.com) and the Swedish Environmental Management
Council (SEMC). An EPD is always created according to a Product
Category Rule. This method is especially important for everybody
who is reporting a Product Category Rule (PCR) published by
Environdec. In the standard EPDs it has only to be reported on the
following impact categories: ozone layer depletion, global warming
potential, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical oxidation. In
this case Global Warming Potential is not considered because the
Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) is calculated.
3.2. Carbon footprint calculation
Carbon footprint is calculated based on the method: IPCC 2013,
contained in the SimaPro software. This is an update of the method
IPCC (2007a,b), developed by the International Panel on Climate
Change. This method lists the climate change factors of IPCC with a
timeframe of 20, 100 and 500 years. In this study a timeframe of 100
years is used. The total GHG emissions for a product inventory shall
be calculated as the sum of GHG emissions, in CO2 eq, of all fore-
ground processes and significant background processes within the
system boundary. A distinction is made between: GHG emissions
from fossil sources, Biogenic carbon emissions, Carbon storage,
Emissions from land transformation.
3.3. Calculation of volumetric water footprint and water footprint
LCA indicators
According to The Water Footprint Assessment Manual (Hoekstra
et al., 2011), “the water footprint is an indicator of freshwater use
that looks not only at direct water use of a consumer or producer,
but also at the indirect water use”. Three different typologies of
water are considered: blue water, green water and gray water. Blue
water footprint refers to consumption of blue water resources
(surface and groundwater) along the supply chain of a product. The
green water footprint refers to consumption of green resources
(rainwater that does not become run-off). The gray water footprint
refers to pollution and it is defined as the volume of freshwater that
is required to assimilate the load of pollutants given natural

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 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12 7

background concentrations and existing ambient water quality
standards.
In particular, while in this study direct blue water consumption
is measured and indirect blue water consumption is estimated
through Simapro software database, green water footprint is based
on green water evapotranspiration (ETgreen), that is calculated as
the minimum of total crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and effective
rainfall, with a time step of ten days.
Total crop evapotranspiration is calculated solving equation (1).
3.4. Ecological footprint calculation
The ecological footprint, according to Wackernagel (1994), is
defined as the biologically productive land and water a population
requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb part of
the waste generated by fossil and nuclear fuel consumption. In the
context of LCA, the ecological footprint of a product is defined as the
sum of time integrated direct and indirect land occupation, related
to nuclear energy use and to CO2 emissions from fossil energy use.
It can be calculated through equation (3).

EF ¼ EFdirect þ EFCO2 þ EFnuclear (3)

Etc ¼ Et0 *Kc *Ks
where Kc represents a crop coefficient for the respective growth
period, Et0 represents crop evapotranspiration expressed in mm/
day at the particular location (UCEA meteorological station located
in Marsciano, Umbria, Italy) and time, obtained through the
Pennman Montheit equation revised by FAO (Lamastra et al., 2014).
Vine evapotranspiration was calculated considering a crop coeffi-
cient of 0.85 according to Boselli (2014). The gray water footprint is
calculated solving equation (2).
(1) EFnuclear is not considered in this study. EFdirect accounts for the
land used directly. EFCO2 accounts for indirect land occupation,
necessary to absorb all the CO2 eq emissions released during the
product life cycle. Normalization is not a part of this method. In
order to get a footprint, each impact category is given the weighting
factor 1. In particular the Ecological Footprint of grapes cultivation
(EFv) was calculated as reported in Niccolucci et al. (2008), ac-
cording to equation (4).
EFv ¼ T=Yw *EQF (4)

where T represents the annual quantity of grapes produced, Yw

WFg ¼ ðalfa*ApplÞ=ðCmax  Cnat Þ
where WFg is the gray water footprint (expressed in m3/functional
unit); alfa is the leaching-runoff fraction (constant); Appl is the
applied chemicals rate (kg/ha); Cmax is the environmental water
quality standard (kg/m3); Cnat is the natural concentration in the
receiving water body (kg/m3), generally assumed to be 0. Together
with the volumetric water footprint, theorized by Hoekstra et al.
(2011) and the water research community, other indicators have
been developed by the LCA community, which use also the
denomination of “water footprint”. Four methods in particular are
considered in this study, because they are available in the software
SimaPro 8 and so they are easy to be accessed: Boulay et al. (2011),
Hoekstra et al. (2012), Pfister et al. (2009), Berger et al. (2014). In
Table 4 a comparison between the main assumptions of those
methods is presented.
As it can be seen from Table 4 all the four presented methods are
based on consumptive water use. They are all comprised between
1 and 1, but Hoekstra's. They can be based either on WTA or CTA.
represents the world average grape yield for 1 ha, EQF represents
(2) the equivalence factor, which is useful to convert ha in gha ac-
cording to Galli et al. (2007).
4. Results
The results of the analysis presented in this paper start reporting
mass and energy balances measured in the growing season 2012.
Data are taken from field measurements but also from a local
winery and from the same farm in which an experimental supply
chain for vinegar was developed. Fuel consumption during trans-
port operations was also measured. Based on mass and energy
balances the Carbon Footprint, Water Footprint, Ecological Foot-
print and LCA were calculated inserting those data on Simapro
software. The software was also used to calculate water footprint
sustainability based on 4 methods: Boulay et al. (2011) (Water
Scarcity), Hoekstra et al. (2012) (Water Scarcity), Pfister et al. (2009)
(Water Scarcity), Berger et al. (2014), (Water Scarcity). After
reporting all the values of different impact indicators, process
contribution is also discussed.

Table 4
Comparison of different water footprint sustainability methods.

Method Main characteristics

Berger - Based on the WDI (Water Depletion Index)

- WDI is calculate referring to CTA (Consumption to Availability)
- Comprised between 1 and 1
- Considers only consumptive water use

Boulay - Based on the WSI (Water Scarcity Indicator)

- WSI is calculated referring to CTA (Consumption to Availability)
- Comprised between 1 and 1
- Considers only consumptive water use

Hoekstra - Based on WSb (Water Scarcity Indicator for blue water)

- WSb is calculated referring to CTA (Consumption to Availability)
- Availability considers all runoff water, of which 80% is subtracted to account for environmental needs
- Comprised between 3.767248164 and þ3.767248164
- Considers only consumptive water use

Pfister - Based on the WSI (water scarcity indicator)

- WSI is calculated referring to WTA (withdrawal to availability)
- Comprised between 1 and 1
- Considers only consumptive water use

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
8 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12

4.1. Mass and energy balances Table 6

Diesel fuel consumption during Grechetto and Sagrantino grapes cultivation.

Mass flows for the cultivation process in season 2012 are pre- Operation Diesel fuel consumption Diesel fuel consumption
sented in Table 5, both for Grechetto and Sagrantino grapes. for Grechetto for Sagrantino
Diesel consumptions for different cultivation processes are re- grapes (l/ha) grapes (l/ha)

ported in Table 6, both for Grechetto grapes and Sagrantino grapes. Weeding 8 9
Loss of material during harvest is assumed to be about 7% of total 1st treatment 9 8
2nd treatment 9 9
harvested mass.
3rd treatment 9 10
Grechetto grapes are transported to the winery by tractor, 4th treatment 10 8
where they are pressed consuming 3.4 kW h/t of electricity. After 5th treatment 10 9
pressing the must was conserved and refrigeration energy con- Mechanical pruning 23 21
6th treatment 10 7
sumption was measured to be about 7.3 kW h/t. Part of the must
Shredding 13 11
was transformed to wine in the winery. Grechetto grapes were used 7th treatment 9 10
to produce white wine by pressing the grapes, settling and then Irrigation 18 15
fermenting the juice, performing cold stabilization, filtering and Harvest 16 14
bottling. Red wine was produced from Sagrantino grapes through Transport to the winery 59 10
Plantation realization 54 54
crushing, fermenting the must (mixture of grapes, skins, juice and
Plantation 5 5
seeds), pressing, racking, filtration and bottling. Wine that will be pre-production
used to produce vinegar (that it is only a part of the total produced Plantation removal 9 9
wine) is not bottled. In this case the wine and the remaining must Total 292 220
were transported back to the farm. A different approach was
adopted for Sagrantino grapes, that were pressed in the farm and
decentralized pressing electrical consumption increased to 8.4 kW/
Table 7
h. Part of the obtained must was transformed into wine, through Energy balances of the must boiling process.
fermentation in the farm. The remaining must was boiled in the
Parameter Grechetto Sagrantino
farm for both grapes varieties. Mass balances of the processes are
must must
proposed in Table 7.
Once the must was boiled, acetification was performed in the Initial must mass 72 kg 72 kg
Final must mass 26 kg 38 kg
farm with the wine of Grechetto grapes (produced in the winery) Initial sugar concentration (measured 22 24
and the wine of Sagrantino grapes (produced in the farm). In the with rifractometer)
following step the acetified inoculums obtained from Grechetto Final sugar concentration (measured 60 52
wine was mixed with the boiled Grechetto must; masses ratios with rifractometer)
Reducing sugars (Fehling essay) 5526 g/ml 6575 g/ml
were 0.55 for the inoculums and 0.45 for the boiled must. The same
Density at 15  C 1.244 1.27
was done for Sagrantino must and inoculums. All these operations Sugars 
28 Be 
31 Be
were performed manually. The barrels impact was not considered. Fuel consumed 9 kg propane 7 kg propane
During the aging phase 15% of the initial product is added after one
year, to balance the losses due to evaporation of water (data gained
by experience through the experimental campaign). The total aging
period is of 1 year. evaporation, during the aging phase. So this product has a higher
environmental burden. Dealing with photochemical oxidation it
4.2. Main results: aged vinegar impacts can be seen that the impact is negative so the production of aged
vinegar and wine has a positive impact on this category. This can be
As it can be seen form Table 8, the impacts of aged vinegar are explained by the fact that in the packaging phase the following
higher compared to those of wine (see Table 3). This can be process has been selected: “Container glass (delivered to the end
explained with the fact that it is required from 1.5 to 2 kg of wine to user of the contained product, reuse rate: 7%), technology mix,
produce 1 kg of aged vinegar, due to boiling operation and production mix at plant RER S” and it has emissions of nitrous oxide

Table 5
Mass inputs in the cultivation phase.

Process Mass input Comments

Harvest Grechetto grapes: 9 t/ha
Sagrantino grapes: 7 t/ha
Nutrient management Urea: 100 kg/ha
Weeding 1 kg/ha Galigan
1 kg/ha Silglif
Phytosanitary management 5.7 kg/ha Acrobat
6.84 kg/ha Topas
0.045 kg/ha Antifoam
6 kg/ha Siaram
0.8 kg/ha Switch
0.6 t/ha water
Grechetto variety had a higher yield respect to Sagrantino, in 2012
Fertilizer is applied with a spreader
Silglif MK (produced by Agan Chemical Manufacturers Ltd) is a generic herbicide.
Galigan (produced by Makhteshim Agan Italy) contains Oxifluorfen and so it has a
synergic action together with Silglif (containing Glyphosate) increasing efficiency of
action on perennial weeds. the two above mentioned products are distributed in two different times;
1 kg/ha of product is mixed with 400 m3 of water and 15 ml of antifoam product (bought from BASF)
to avoid foam formation in the herbicide distribution tank.
Three treatments with systemic fungicide (Acrobat MZ WG, produced by BASF and containing Dimetomorf
in concentration of 9%p/p and Mancozeb in concentration of 60% p/p) and sulfur (TOPAS 10 EC,
produced by Syngenta) were performed. Three treatments with Bordeaux mixture (Siaram 20 WG,
produced by Siapa) and sulfur (TOPAS 10 EC, produced by Syngenta) were performed. One treatment
with Bordeaux mixture and an anti-Botrytis product (SWITCH produced by Syngenta).

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
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 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12 9

Table 8 aged vinegar ranges from 9.83 to 13.23 g m2/l. The water footprint
Environmental indicators results for aged vinegar. of aged vinegar varies between 1332 and 1892 l/l for vinegar. While
Impact category Unit Grechetto Sagrantino the Carbon Footprint, Ecological Footprint and Water Footprint of
vinegar vinegar wine were already studied in literature, no study has taken into
Carbon footprint kg CO2 eq/l 2.54 1.94 account water footprint Water Footprint LCA indicator such as
Ecological footprint g m2/l 13.23 9.83 those developed by: Boulay et al. (2011) (Water Scarcity), Hoekstra
WFblue l/l 446 301 et al. (2012) (Water Scarcity), Pfister et al. (2009) (Water Scarcity),
WFgreen l/l 830 592
Berger et al. (2014), (Water Scarcity). For these reason these will be
WFgray l/l 616 439
WFtotal l/l 1892 1332 analyzed in a separate paragraph on the discussion section. Dealing
WF e LCA, according l/l 3.7 5.3 with the indicators of the EPD 2013 method, contained in SimaPro 8
to Berger software, the following results have been obtained: the impact on
WF e LCA, according l/l 5.4 7.4
Ozone Layer Depletion category of aged vinegar is comprised be-
to Boulay
WF e LCA, according l/l 9.2 12.6
tween 1.43 * 107 and 1.8 * 107 kg CFC-11 eq/l, the impact on
to Hoekstra Acidification category is comprised between 0.0179 and 0.0233 kg
WF e LCA, according l/l 4.1 5.7 SO2 eq/l, the impact on Eutrophication category is comprised be-
to Pfister tween 0.0064 and 0.0091 kg PO4 eq/l and the impact on Photo-
Ozone layer depletion kg CFC-11 eq/l 1.8E7 1.43E7
chemical Oxidation is comprised between 0.00019 and
Acidification kg SO2 eq/l 0.0233 0.0179
Eutrophication kg PO4 eq/l 0.0091 0.0064 0.00014 kg C2H4 eq/l. The results of the different impact evalua-
Photochemical oxidation kg C2H4 eq/l 0.00014 0.00019 tion methods confirm that vinegar produced in the farm from
Sagrantino grapes, using decentralized production system, has a
lower environmental burden.
that reduce photochemical oxidation risks (according to McElroy
and McConnell, 1996).
Besides it can be seen that the impact of decentralized pro- 4.3. Operational aspects analysis: how to reduce vinegar impacts
duction (that is wine and aged vinegar production using Sagrantino
grapes in the farm) is always lower than the impact of industrial Tables 9 and 10 present respectively the contribution to the
production (that is wine and aged vinegar production using Gre- impact indicators of three different categories of processes
chetto grapes, transported to a local winery for vinification). belonging to the life cycles of aged vinegar: cultivation, transport
The carbon footprint of vinegar, ranges between 1.94 and and transformation.
2.54 kg CO2 eq/l vinegar, respectively for Sagrantino grapes and for The cultivation phase is the one which contributes the most to
Grechetto grapes. This difference is due to the fact that Sagrantino the impacts of aged vinegar. Cultivation is also the phase with the
grapes are transformed at the farm in a more sustainable way and higher consumption of water. This can be seen from the indicators:
also transport operations are limited. The ecological footprint of Water Footprint and Water Footprint LCA indicators. It is

Table 9
Process contribution to the impact of aged vinegar obtained from Grechetto grapes.

Process CFa EF-LOb EF-CO2c WFd WF_Bee WF_Bof WF_Hg WF_Ph OLDi ACj EUk POl

Soil preparation 0.40% 90.91% 0.20% 5.00% 1.30% 1.11% 0.17% 1.20% 0.40% 0.20% 0.20% 1.20%
Evapotranspiration 0.00% 0.00% 41.40% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Nutrient management 32.00% 21.10% 25.70% 59.00% 51.00% 56.20% 54.70% 8.20% 65.30% 63.30% 25.40%
Phytosanitary management 5.50% 8.90% 2.00% 30.60% 27.00% 21.60% 22.50% 55.10% 3.30% 20.00% 34.60%
Harvest 0.40% 0.40% 3.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.50%
Cultivation 38.30% 90,91% 30.60% 77.30% 90.90% 79.10% 78.00% 78.40% 63.70% 68.80% 83.50% 61.70%
Transport to farm 1.30% 0.00% 1.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.00% 1.00%
Transport 2 1.20% 0.00% 1.1% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.10% 0.20%
Transport 3 1.20% 0.00% 1.1% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.00% 1.10%
Transport 3.70% 0.00% 3.40% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.30% 0.10% 2.30%
Pressing 1.90% 0.00% 2.10% 1.00% 0.00% 0.90% 1.10% 1.10% 1.50% 1.10% 0.20% 10.40%
Fermentation 1.00% 0.00% 1.10% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Cooling 1.10% 0.00% 1.20% 1.00% 0.00% 0.50% 0.50% 0.50% 2.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Boiling 23.37% 0.00% 21.50% 7.00% 0.00% 0.20% 0.20% 0.20% 0.00% 1.60% 0.80% 10.4%
Acetification 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Mixing 3.00% 0.00% 3.04% 3.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.50% 0.10% 1.00%
Aging 3.80% 0.00% 3.10% 7.70% 9.10% 7.90% 7.80% 7.80% 6.40% 6.90% 8.40% 6.20%
Bottling 3.00% 0.00% 4.00% 3.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.10% 0.10% 1.20% 1.00% 0.80% 6.00%
Packaging & disposal 20.80% 0.00% 30.00% 0.00% 0.00% 11.30% 12.30% 11.90% 25.00% 19.80% 6.15% 198.00%
Transformation 58.00% 9.10% 66.00% 22.70% 9.10% 20.91% 22.00% 21.64% 36.27% 30.88% 16.40% ¡164.00%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
a
Carbon footprint.
b
Ecological footprint e land occupation.
c
Ecological footprint e CO2.
d
Water footprint.
e
Water footprint characterized according to Berger.
f
Water footprint characterized according to Boulay.
g
Water footprint characterized according to Hoekstra.
h
Water footprint characterized according to Pfister.
i
Ozone layer depletion.
j
Acidification.
k
Eutrophication.
l
Photochemical oxidation.

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
10 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12

Table 10
Process contribution to the impact of aged vinegar obtained from Sagrantino grapes.

Process contribution CFa EF-LOb EF-CO2c WFd WF_Bee WF_Bof WF_Hg WF_Ph OLDi ACj EUk POl

Soil preparation 0.40% 90.91% 0.20% 3.29% 1.39% 1.11% 1.17% 1.20% 0.40% 0.20% 0.20% 0.60%
Evapotranspiration 0.00% 0.00% 42.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Nutrient management 25.0% 23.2% 26.00% 59.00% 51.50% 52.70% 52.10% 8.67% 58.00% 61.60% 13.50%
Phytosanitary management 7.7% 8.3% 2.00% 30.56% 23.40% 20.80% 21.90% 49.20% 3.50% 19.60% 22.50%
Harvest 0.30% 0.3% 4.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.30%
Cultivation 33.4% 90.91% 32.00% 77.30% 91.00% 76.00% 74.70% 75.20% 58.30% 61.70% 81.40% 36.90%
Transport to farm 0.65% 0.00% 0.55% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.05% 0.00% 0.50%
Transport 2 0.60% 0.00% 0.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.05% 0.05% 0.10%
Transport 3 0.60% 0.00% 0.50% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.05% 0.00% 0.55%
Transport 1.85% 0.00% 1.55% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.15% 0.05% 1.15%
Pressing 1.40% 0.00% 1.53% 1.00% 0.00% 0.70% 0.80% 0.80% 1.00% 0.80% 0.20% 4.20%
Fermentation 1.00% 0.00% 1.10% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Cooling 1.10% 0.00% 1.20% 1.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.6% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Boiling 22.7% 0.00% 23.00% 7.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.10% 0.10% 0.00% 1.40% 0.80% 5.20%
Acetification 0.0% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%
Mixing 3.00% 0.00% 3.00% 3.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.50% 0.10% 1.00%
Aging 3.30% 9.10% 3.20% 7.70% 9.10% 7.60% 7.50% 7.50% 5.80% 6.20% 8.10% 3.70%
Bottling 3.00% 0.00% 4.00% 3.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.10% 0.10% 1.20% 1.00% 0.80% 3.00%
Packaging & disposal 29.21% 0.00% 29.42% 0.00% 0.00% 15.50% 16.90% 16.30% 32.10% 28.30% 8.48% 155.1%
Transformation 64.75% 9.10% 66.45% 22.73% 9.1% 24.00% 25.37% 24.82% 41.73% 38.17% 18.52% ¡138.01
Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
a
Carbon footprint.
b
Ecological footprint e land occupation.
c
Ecological footprint e CO2.
d
Water footprint.
e
Water footprint characterized according to Berger.
f
Water footprint characterized according to Boulay.
g
Water footprint characterized according to Hoekstra.
h
Water footprint characterized according to Pfister.
i
Ozone layer depletion.
j
Acidification.
k
Eutrophication.
l
Photochemical oxidation.

interesting to notice that cultivation has an important contribution
to the Ecological Footprint of the products. This can be explained by
the fact that cultivation contributes to the final ecological footprint
in two ways: emitting GHG, but also consuming land, which is to
say agricultural soils. So the Ecological Footprint contains in a way
also the Carbon Footprint impact. Cultivation contributes also to
Eutrophication and Acidification impacts, to Ozone Layer Depletion
and to Photochemical Oxidation, in this last case the impact is
positive, while the impact of transformation is negative, due to the
particular packaging used. The transport phase contributes mostly
to the following impacts: Acidification, Eutrophication, Photo-
chemical Oxidation, Carbon Footprint and Ecological Footprint.
Consumption of water during transport is very limited so the
contribution to Water Footprint and Water footprint LCA indicators
is zero. The contribution of transport to the total impact of vinegar
is never higher than 3%. Despite this it can be seen that producing
vinegar in the farm with a decentralized process can reduce about
1% of the total Carbon Footprint. The transformation phase hardly
ever contributes more than 50% to the total impact of aged vinegar.
The only exception is for the Carbon Footprint. In this case the GHG
emissions released during packaging production have an important
contribution that is even higher than that of the cultivation phase.
Important considerations have to be reported on the following
processes: nutrient management, aging, packaging, boiling, press-
ing and transport. Nutrient management process has an important
impact on carbon footprint and ecological footprint and it accounts
for more than 30% of the total impact. It has also an important
impact on the water footprint, due to the amount of water required
in the production of the fertilizer (urea). It has also an important
impact on acidification and eutrophication. So a way to reduce
these impacts could be using organic fertilizers or biochar for
example (that can be produced from vineyard prunings). Aging
contribution to the total impact varies from 3% to 9%, this is due to
the addition of must plus vinegar to the aged mixture to balance the
losses occurred during 1 year of aging in barriques. This impact
cannot be reduced unless reducing other impacts (i.e. cultivation
impact). Packaging contribution to the total impact ranges from 15%
to 28%. This impact can be reduced switching to different packaging
materials (for example biomaterials) or reducing the weight of glass
used in each bottle. Boiling and pressing contribute respectively
from 1% to 20% and from 1% to 10% of the total impact. Wine cooling
has a reduced impact because this operation is quite limited in
time, being wine used for the production of vinegar almost
immediately. The impact of boiling and pressing processes can be
reduced with energy efficiency measures and also through the use
of renewable energy (biomass for heating or biogas to produce
electricity in CHP plants). Transport process has a limited contri-
bution as mentioned above.
5. Discussion
In this section the results of the work will be further discussed
focusing on the comparison of different water footprint LCA in-
dicators methods and on the limits of the study. As previously said
in the introduction, there is a debate between the community of
water resources research and the LCA community on the weighting
(or characterization process) used in LCA software and indicated
also in the ISO 14046:2014 norm (ISO, 2014). For the above said
reason this papers aims at providing data useful to the comparison
of volumetric water footprint calculation, performed according to
Hoekstra et al. (2012) and the water footprint calculated using the
new methods inserted in the software SimaPro version 8.
About the limit of this study it should be considered that: in this
analysis no sensitivity nor uncertainty analysis are performed and

Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
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 P. Bartocci et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2016) 1e12
also no impact is assigned to the consumption phase of the vinegar
life cycle. These assumptions will be discussed further in the next
paragraphs of this section.
5.1. Comparison of different water footprint methods available in
LCA software
As above said an interesting aspect of these work is the com-
parison of water footprint LCA indicators among them and with the
results of volumetric water footprint calculation. On one hand these
indicators have an important advantage on the volumetric carbon
footprint: they are weighted or characterized. As it is known
characterization is an important step indicated also in the ISO
14046:2014 norm (ISO, 2014 see page 34). On the other hand the
final value provided, being characterized, it is not so useful to
indicate the absolute performance of a product, but it can be used
for comparing two different goods. Water footprint LCA indicators
assume, different values depending on the assumptions of the
models. From Table 8 it can be seen that the highest values are
those obtained using the method reported in Hoestra et al. (2012),
while the lowest are those of the method of Berger et al. (2014).
This can be explained with the fact that in Hoekstra's method is the
only to subtract water requirement for ecosystem to the total water
availability, in this way decreasing the total value of the denomi-
nator of the water scarcity index. Berger value is the lowest because
in this method wastewater discharges, evapotranspiration recy-
cling and synthetically created vapor recycling are subtracted to
water consumption.
It can be concluded that the water scarcity weighted water
footprint methods available in the software SimaPro 8 give
different results depending on their assumptions. These can be
useful for comparative studies between different products.
5.2. Limits of the study
One limit of this study is represented by the fact that it is not
performed a sensitivity analysis, but this is due to the fact that in
other publications, such as Fantozzi et al. (2015) a sensitivity
analysis was performed on allocation techniques. This is a key
issue on LCA analysis. But in this case no competing techniques
were available because the only reliable decision is to process
allocation based on economic values, as reported in several PCRs
on wine that can be downloaded from the Environdec website.
Besides the aim of this paper was to compare different methods to
evaluate environmental impact of food production, for this reason,
taking into consideration the number of methods which are
compared it wouldn't be possible to perform an uncertainty
analysis on all the data collected. The same is for the sensitivity
analysis. Another limit is the assumption that was made to
consider the consumption phase negligible. As it can be seen from
other studies made on wine (see Point et al., 2012) while con-
sumer storage can be neglected, the consumer shopping trip can
have important contribution to some impacts categories, such as:
Global Warming, Ozone Layer Depletion, Photochemical Oxidation
Potential and Cumulative Energy Demand. Despite this there was
not the possibility in this study to recover reliable data on the
average distance covered by costumers that were interested to buy
the analyzed product.
6. Conclusions
The work analyzes the environmental impact of grapes, wine
and aged vinegar, based on different indicators (carbon footprint,
ecological footprint, water footprint, acidification, eutrophication,
ozone layer depletion, photochemical oxidation). The scientific
Please cite this article in press as: Bartocci, P., et al., Environmental impact of Sagrantino and Grechetto grapes cultivation for wine and vinegar
production in central Italy, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.04.090
11
added value of the work is represented by the use of new water
footprint assessment methodologies, carbon footprint, ecological
footprint and Environmental Product Declaration 2013 (EPD, 2013)
impact evaluation method, to assess the impact of a new product:
aged vinegar. The process system has been divided in the following
sections: cultivation, pressing, boiling must, wine making and
acetification, aged vinegar production, packaging. Energy con-
sumption and material consumption (fertilizer, herbicides etc.)
were measured in the different phases. Aged vinegar was produced
in two ways: in a first case wine (to be used as an ingredient) was
produced in an external winery (using Grechetto variety grapes); in
the other case the wine was produced in the farm. Then from wine,
through acetification an inoculum was produced and this was
mixed with boiled must. The results show that aged vinegar has a
carbon footprint comprised between 1.94 and 2.54 kg CO2/l. The
Ecological footprint of aged vinegar varies between 9.83 and
13.23 g m2/kg. The Water Footprint of aged vinegar varies between
1332 and 1892 l/l. The most impacting processes in aged vinegar life
cycle are: nutrient management, aging, packaging, boiling and
pressing. To reduce the impact of fertilization organic fertilizers or
biochar can be used. Packaging impact can be reduced switching to
different packaging materials (for example biomaterials) or
reducing the weight of glass used in each bottle. Boiling and
pressing impacts can be reduced with energy efficiency measures
and also through the use of renewable energy (biomass for heating
or biogas to produce electricity in CHP plants).
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Italian Ministry of
Environment and Territory that has co-funded the project “Analysis
and perspectives of reduction of carbon footprint of truffle sauce
and balsamic vinegar in a small enterprise of central Italy and
evaluation of the repetition potential on a national level” under the
framework of D.M. n.468 19th May 2011. The authors also
acknowledge the collaboration of personnel from the “CANTINE DI
BETTONA” winery for data measuring and gathering. Ing. Pierluigi
Saputo is acknowledged for text formatting and graphical support.
A. De Matteo and Wall Street English Perugia are acknowledged for
their help in paper editing.
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