Early october 20 journalists visited selected innovative European projects dealing with Food and Agriculture. Between appointments in Latvia and Greece our project LIFE VinEcoS was the only German station on the trip. We gladly took the opportunity to inform about climate adapted wine growing methods which we currently test in the framework of LIFE VinEcoS.

After the delegations arrival State secretary Weber forwarded the greeting of Mrs Dalbert, Minister for Environment, Agriculture and Energy of Saxony-Anhalt. The managing directors of Landgesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt and Kloster Pforta vineyard, Mr Boß resp. Mr Schumann then in the name of all project partners expressed their joy about the high European interest in LIFE VinEcoS.

It quickly turned out that ongoing project activities are positively observed in further countries with long vine growing tradition, e.g. in France, Bulgaria, Austria and Slovenia.

First intermediate result were presented during a walk across the Saalhauser vineyard, amongst others: the erosion control system is in place; grazed variants showed higher species number and higher total cover than mulched variants; sheep eat only very low amounts of ripe grapes. Furthermore the methodological basis to evaluate ecosystem services has been evaluated.