This week’s owner coupon is $5 off tickets to the wine shows. Learn more about the coupon below.
This month we’re excited to introduce organic wines from the Moncaro Winery, an Italian co-op of small farmers. These wines arrived in our stores last week, just in time for the Spring Wine Sale, which began May 1.
About the Moncaro Winery
The Moncaro co-op formed to empower Italian farmers and free them from big land owners. Up until 1982, under the “mezzadria” system, farmers who cultivated somebody else’s land had to give half of the products to the owner. Most farmers owned a few acres of their own vineyards, which traditionally had been harvested to make wine at home. By banding together in a co-op, the farmers could instead sell their own grapes for a good price, working their own land and being paid fairly for their work.
Each farmer family in the co-op gets one vote, whether they own 1 hectare or 1000. (Most own 1 to 2 hectares, with an estimated 1,000 owners.) Each year, co-op owners sell all their grapes to the co-op, which is committed to buying them. Quality standards determine the price, which is higher than the market price. The owners elect a board to run the co-op.
Moncaro farmers have been cultivating organic grapes since 1980. The co-op works on innovative projects to help the environment in collaboration with the University of Ancona; current projects include studying new cultivation techniques (using seashell extracts in place of copper on the fields) and finding new production techniques to reduce the use of sulfites. They use an innovative system to recycle waste water and also recycle other materials, and use renewable energy at the winery. And they are certified as a socially responsible work environment.
About the Wine Sale and Shows
The Spring Wine Sale this year runs from May 1 to 28. We have 34 wines on sale at up to 50% off. This includes 23 organic wines, 3 biodynamic wines, and 7 fair-trade wines! In addition, we give a case discount of 10% and a 5% discount on a half case. (You can mix-and-match the 12 wines in the case or 6 wines in the half-case.) View the wine list, here.
You can try all the wines at our three wine shows:
- Hillsborough, May 4, 1-5 PM
- Carrboro (tentative), May 11, 1-5 PM
- Hillsborough, May 18, 1-5 PM
Details about the shows are posted on our blog, here.
This week’s owner coupon is $5 off wine show tickets, good at all three wine shows, May 4-18, 2019. Owners, look for the coupon in our weekly e-news, sent on Wednesday morning. If you didn’t get the coupon, you may need to update your email address in our owner database. Contact us at ownershares@weaverstreetmarket.coop.
Not an owner? Become one today to receive the weekly owner coupon as well as the other benefits of ownership, like invitations to the Co-op Fair, a logo T-shirt and bag, and the right to vote in board elections. Learn more here.