by Daniel Thomases
CANAIOLO
Canaiolo, also known as Canaiolo Nero to distinguish it from the white-berried version ("Drupeggio") widely used alongside Trebbiano, Malvasia, and Grechetto in many central Italian white blends, is one of the historic red grapes of Tuscany. Along with Sangiovese, it was, in the century between 1870 and 1970, the basis of the blend of Chianti Classico, the other Chianti-style wines produced in a substantial part of the territory of Tuscany, and of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Significant evidence exists, in fact, to suggest that Canaiolo was the most important grape of all in Chianti Classico until World War I. It was only the result of the prestige which Sangiovese enjoyed as a result of the work of Baron Bettino Ricasoli (the second Prime Minister of the newly united kingdom of Italy in 1860 and a dedicated agricultural reformer and viticultural experimenter), who gave Sangiovese a privileged place in his famous "formula" for Chianti, Sangiovese + Canaiolo, which tipped the scales in favor of the former grape.
A variety of this importance must obviously have a long history behind it, and this is indeed the case for Canaiolo: Petrus de Crescentiis cited "Canajuola" as early as in the first decade of the 14th century and describes it as a "lovely grape, one to cherish and protect" ("bellisima uva e da serbare"). Canaiolo was successively cited by Soderini in the 17th century and by Villifranchi in the 18th century, by then with the spelling which corresponds to the modern form: Canaiolo.
Canaiolo has, unfortunately, suffered an important loss of popularity and interest on the part of Tuscan cultivators and producers in the twentieth century, though not always for reasons which accurately reflect the true quality potential of the variety. It ripens fairly late in growing season, often even later than Sangiovese, and is consequently - as opposed to such currently popular French varieties as Merlot and Syrah - somewhat vulnerable to October rains, problems of mould and rot, and dilution of the wines. Canaiolo has also had notable difficulties in adapting to many of the American rootstocks onto which European grape varieties are grafted in order to protect them from attacks from the root-eating phylloxera vine louse.
Despite these problems, which are anything but insuperable with a real commitment from producers and proper professional work in the vineyard, Canaiolo remains a useful and interesting variety and one which deserves more attention. Less intense and structured than Sangiovese, it compensates with much aromatic elegance, a direct and expressive fruitiness, and a lovely softness of texture. When cultivated to give the proper body and concentration, it gives a wine of much individual character, one with a personality that is immediately distinctive and perceptible and with good length and persistence on the palate.
Particularly favorable areas for Canaiolo have not yet been identified, nor have clonal research or selections from vine nurseries identified genetically superior material. As a late-ripening variety, Canaiolo needs well exposed vineyards, but, at the present moment, quality seems directly linked to individual estates with a history of high level results from the grape. These properties, which have often replanted Canaiolo from their own cuttings and avoided the rather variable quality of much Canaiolo supplied by vine nurseries, are now in position to respond to consumer interest in wines which offer new and different sensations, alternatives to much of the standardized wine now on the market.
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MONTEPULCIANO
Montepulciano, with over 75,000 acres of vineyards planted to the variety, is one of Italy's major red grapes, but its popularity, and the increasingly high quality of the wines which it makes, is in inverse proportion to the extreme confusion which has marked both the history, nomenclature, and scientific study of the variety. And this, beyond the shadow of a doubt, can largely be attributed to its name. Montepulciano, a small city with a very distinguished Renaissance architecture, located in the southeastern part of Tuscany which directly touches Umbria, has long been known for the excellent red wines produced from what is locally known as the "Prugnolo gentile" grape. Prugnolo Gentile is, quite simply, one of the many members of the Sangiovese family, central Italy's most widely cultivated variety The wine it gives in the area immediately adjacent to Montepulciano, known as Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, has been generally considered one of Italy's most important red wines ever since the late 16th century, when it was cited by Sante Lancerio, the papal cup-bearer, and the mid-17th century, when it was praised in a famous poem - "Bacchus in Tuscany " - as "the king of wines".
It was only logical, accordingly, for Montepulciano to be described as a Sangiovese which had wandered across the Apennines and found a home along the eastern coast of Italy. And this not only in the more impressionistic and dilettantish volumes of grape description published in the 18th and 19th centuries, but also in so fundamental a work as Molon's ampelography published in 1906 in Milan. Just to add further confusion, an entirely different red grape, which may have been the Aleatico of Tuscany or Muscat Hamburg, was once cultivated in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont, was also called Montepulciano.
All of this has been definitively clarified by scientific research carried out in the post-World War II period, and by now there are few doubts that this is a variety in its own right with nothing whatsoever to do with Sangiovese or other grapes erroneously baptized with the name of Montepulciano.
What has instead remained constant is the area in which the grape is most widely planted and gives its most important results. This is the territory along the Adriatic coast of Italy, and the first zone in which Montepulciano is a significant presence is the Rosso Conero appellation behind the city of Ancona. Much Montepulciano is planted further south in the Marches, in the Rosso Piceno denomination, and the variety dominates the vineyards of both the Abruzzo and the Molise regions below. Its last outposts are the northern provinces of the region of Apulia, Foggia and, to a lesser extent, Bari. A lone outpost of fine Montepulciano can be found in Montecastrili in the warm southern part of Umbria, and there are some occasional plantings of the variety in the Tuscan Maremma, principally in the provinces of Livorno and Grosseto, where, at times, it was planted by cultivators who had settled in the zone from the Marches, bringing their major native grape with them.
What all of the different areas have in common is their climate: Montepulciano is a somewhat late ripener, often maturing even after Sangiovese, and requires sustained heat during the summer in order to mature properly. Its preferred sites are generally on hillsides, but important grapes from relatively flat areas indicate that the variety is reasonably adaptable. What is essential is a serious viticulture aimed at keeping yields down; Montepulciano is a vigorous and generous variety and over-cropped vineyards give disappointing results: the wines have color and alcohol but little else. The tendency to push production beyond desirable levels is undoubtedly the result of the historic role of Montepulciano in the Abruzzo, where virtually none of the wine was bottled and the largest part of the production departed in tanker trucks to beef up anemic wines from cool climates. This as well has begun to change, and a larger number of well made Montepulciano d'Abruzzo are now on the market alongside those of the historic houses which have always made a distinguished product.
Montepulciano's specific characteristics as a wine are fairly easy to describe: dark in color, ripe and warm on the nose with jammy notes of plums and blackberries, ample and enveloping on the palate with a rich texture and plush tannins. Excellent on its own, it is also an ideal wine for blending with Sangiovese, its fullness and softness functioning as an excellent counterfoil to the more acid and tannic, more subtly perfumed Tuscan grape. The blend is the basis of the Rosso Piceno appellation, now attracting increasing attention for the original and characterful wines which are now beginning to appear in the zone, and which will undoubtedly become more numerous as a better viticulture and new, more professionally planted vineyards come into production. An occasional bottle of this combination of grapes from the Maremma indicates that the formula is a generally valid one, not one which is confined to a single area. Considering the large acreage in production and the increasing awareness of the potential of the variety, a new importance for Montepulciano in the overall Italian picture seems a certainty: 25 year old bottles of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo from legendary producer Edoardo Valentini indicate not only that the wine provides excellent drinking when young, but that it is also capable of an extended period of aging and improvement in bottles, one of the principal characteristics of the world's most distinguished wines.
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DOLCETTO
In addition to supplying a highly pleasurable wine, Dolcetto has a very important function in the overall viticultural economy of Piedmont, the principal region where the variety is cultivated and vinified. Bordering on the French Alps to the west and northwest, on Switzerland to the north, Piedmont's climate is - particularly in the context of a Mediterranean country like Italy - a fairly cool one. The region's two most famous red grapes - Nebbiolo and Barbera - are both late maturing and require an extended hang time on the vine to achieve the proper ripeness: the former to lose its tannic aggressiveness, the latter its often tart acidity. This has always been the case, and is often more true now in a period in which both viticultural theory and viticultural practice attempt to push ripeness to maximum levels in order achieve rounder, smoother, sweeter, and fuller wines.
Dolcetto, instead, presents few if any problems in terms of ripening: in a reasonably warm year the grapes are ready to be picked by the third week of September and the harvest is normally finished by the end of the month, before the colder and damper weather of October sets in. Only the most unfortunate vintages of all are negative for Dolcetto, and in these years Nebbiolo and Barbera fare even worse. Given the relative ease with which the grape can be ripened, the grape has found a permanent home in Piedmont in the cooler, less intensely sunny sites: eastern or western exposures or high altitude vineyards. Places, in short, where Nebbiolo or Barbera would give overly hard or overly sharp wines. The variety has a particular affinity for what are called "white soils" in Piedmont, normally compressed sands with a substantial component of limestone, which bring out all of the grape's sweet fruitiness. Dolcetto, in fact, means "the little sweet one" in Italian, and these are the grapes which the region's inhabitants use to make cognà, a kind of spicy marmalade used both for fruit tarts and desserts and to accompany boiled meats.
The finest Dolcetto comes almost entirely from the province of Cuneo: both the hills to the north and south of the truffle capital of Alba where Barbaresco and Barolo are produced and higher towns and villages such as Montelupo, Rodello, Diano d'Alba, and Dogliani; the latter two, in fact, have appellations of their own, Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba and Dolcetto di Dogliani. Another interesting area for Dolcetto is found to the south of Alessandria, on the road to Genoa, where Dolcetto d'Ovada is produced. The grape also makes a fleeting appearance on the coast of Liguria where, under the name of Ormeasco, it makes a wine with all of the recognizable characteristics of the variety.
Dolcetto has changed notably over the past decade, and not only in terms of a general rise in quality and a much larger number of good bottles. Once thought of as a simple gulping wine, best drunk in its youth and an ideal accompaniment to the copious appetizers which open a typical Piedmontese meal, Dolcetto is now being taken much more seriously. The wine, in fact, is rich in extract, and well made bottles from superior vintages - as evidenced by those made in 1989 and 1990, still drinking extremely well - can age without the slightest problem. Dark in color, fragrant and plumy on the nose with attractive almond notes, Dolcetto is ample and round on the palate, long and smooth on the finish. Better cellar work has eliminated the problem which once plagued a certain number of bottles: Dolcetto needs to be carefully watched and tasted and, above all, racked at the proper moments to avoid reduction and off-odors. Interesting experiments with wood aging have also begun, and it seems safe to say that Dolcetto is heading for a new golden age in which all of the intrinsic potential of the grape and its wines will be fully realized.
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BARBERA
Barbera has often been called "the people's wine" of Piedmont due to the sheer volume of production: at times in the past it represented close to 50% of all of the wine produced in the region. This has somewhat diminished in the 1980's and 1990's, but as recently as 50 years ago it accounted for 40% of the production of the province of Cuneo, 60% of the province of Alessandria, and 64% of the province of Asti. Effectively speaking, "red wine" in these latter two provinces was more or less synonymous with Barbera, as only very minor quantities of Grignolino, Dolcetto, Freisa, or Ruchè provided an alternative. Only in the two provinces of Novara and Vercelli, neither of major significance in the overall viticultural picture of the region, could Barbera be said to be virtually absent.
The reason for this popularity is largely due to the grape's great versatility, and also in this sense could be said to produce "the people's wine". Depending on the specific site, the capabilities of the single producer, and the objectives of the estate, Barbera can provide an entire range of substantially different wines: fruity and frizzy for young drinking, an ideal tavern wine; medium bodied for a wine which goes with the entire sequence of a Piedmontese meal; dark, full, and alcoholic and spicy from oak aging, an excellent accompaniment to rich and important dishes. Praised by poets such as Pascoli and Pastonchi, the second of whom described it as "a virile wine for masculine men" - words which reflect as much the social attitudes of yesteryear, concepts of male and female roles which have disappeared even from the rural parts of the region, as the intrinsic qualities of the wine - Barbera was, and is, an integral part of the social fabric of Piedmont. In certain areas of the region, notably in the Monferrato hills, wine - Barbera, to be precise - was once so abundant that local taverns did not even charge for it: it was offered free and customers paid for the time spent occupying the tables, much as one might pay today for a occupying a parking space.
As a variety, Barbera adapts well to a wide variety of different soils, one of the features which it made it so popular with cultivators. Another was the sustained acidity which protected it against bacterial spoilage: in an era in which the average small producer also grew grain, raised cattle, and tended fruit or nut orchards, the fact that Barbera required relatively less care in the cellar and created fewer worries and problems was unquestionably reassuring.
If enjoyable, quaffing-level Barbera was produced in many parts of the region, top Barbera has, for generations, come from three specific areas. The first is a strip of territory which runs from Costigliole d'Asti in the west to Nizza Monferrato to the east. The earliest historical reference to Barbera as a grape, in fact, comes from the records of the cathedral chapter of this latter city. The second is in the Monferrato hills, in towns and villages such as Vignale Monferrato, Serralunga di Crea, and Moncalvo. The last is the Langhe hills to the north and south of Alba, particularly the two townships of La Morra and Monforte d'Alba.
In these prime areas, Barbera seems an altogether different wine: deep ruby in color, ripe and spciy on the nose, full, silky and warm on the palate with a tonic, refreshing acidity. The rather elevated acidity of the grapes, even when the grapes have accumulated significant amounts of sugar, was, for many years, the Barbera's Achilles heel: excessively tart wines were not in demand from consumers who prized, above all, balance and harmony. This has changed decisively over the past decade and a half, as vineyard yields have been cut back: scientific studies have supplied an irrefutable link between the size of the crop and levels of acidity. In this case, as in many others, the famous dictum of Mies van der Rohe is unquestionably valid: "less" (crop) "is more" (balance and pleasure).
The other major innovation which has transformed top Barbera is the increasingly skilled use of oak in the aging of the wines. Barbera has always had an attractive ripe fruitiness on the nose, but small barrels, coopered from the oak of France's most famous forests, have given an entirely new dimension and complexity to the aromas, further deepened the rich ruby of its color, and given an additional sweetness to its flavors and silk to its texture. From a hard working, honest citizen, the wine has been transformed into an elegant - though unpretentious - aristocrat and is now an important part of the line of Piedmont's (and Italy's) most distinguished houses. And these and other leaps in social level are very much part of the current scene in Italy, of what has put Italian wine on the map.
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UVA Di TROIA
The origins of the Uva di Troia grape are vague and somewhat mysterious, this latter aspect having been emphasized and exaggerated by the local custom of attributing the variety's birthplace to the city of Troy in Asia Minor, whence it supposedly migrated to southern Italy. Giving a Homeric resonance to both the grape and the wine is understandable, the ancient Greeks having been both avid drinkers of wine and the inventors of the systematic viticulture which they then spread to other parts of the world, the association of the wine with great classics of world literature obviously a winning mood from a marketing point of view. The truth, alas, is more pedestrian: Troia - the name for Troy in Italian - was, to be sure, the site of the war between Greeks and Trojans, the theatre of the immortal battles of Achilles and Hector, all against the backdrop of the "wine-dark sea" (to use the precise words of Homer himself). But it is also - indeed, first and foremost - the name of a town in the southern Italian region of Apulia, located to the west of the city of Foggia. Here, and in adjacent areas of the provinces of Bari and Barletta, the grape is widely cultivated and presumably draws its origins, a fact confirmed by the many synonyms which are utilized to name the variety: "Barlettana" (the grape of Barletta), "Uva di Canosa" (the grape of Canosa), "Tranese" (the grape of Trani), "Nero di Troia" (the black grape of Troia), "Troiano" (the grape of Troia), "Vitigno di Barletta" (the variety of Barletta), "Uva di Barletta" (the grape of Barletta), "Uva della Marina" (the grape of the coastline).
The classic sites for the cultivation of Uva di Troia in Apulia are around the city of Barletta, in the northern part of the province of Bari (Andria, Corato, Trani), and near various towns of the province of Foggia (Canosa, Cerignola, San Ferdinando). The grape seems to give its best results relatively near the sea, which explains its local name of "the grape of the coastline".
In terms of tradition, Uva di Troia has rarely been bottled on its own, and it would not be mistaken, in fact, to say that it has rarely been bottled at all. A late ripener, the grape nonetheless is extremely rich in both tannins and in anthocyanins, the coloring material in the skins, and has been customarily used for making blending wines, at times for other parts of Apulia, more frequently for central and southern Italy or for export north of the Alps. As such, it has rarely had the opportunity to show what it can give on its own. That a certain potential existed is clear from the description of Severino Garofano, Apulia's major consulting oenologist over the past quarter century: "alcoholic wines, full ruby in color with purple highlights, low in acidity and rather tannic …. when blended with other grapes it gives age-worthy wines of distinctive character and great interest".
The two major exceptions to the rule which would use Uva di Troia as a simple blending wine are both from the northern part of the province of Bari. The more recent wines are produced by the Santa Lucia estate in Corato, the historic ones - in particular Il Falcone, a single-vineyard bottling, from Rivera in Andria. But even before the emergence of this latter wine, Luigi Veronelli, Italy's leading wine critic, had already identified - in the mid-1970's - Uva di Troia-based wines of character and personality from Cerignola in the province, and his words are worth repeating here: "brilliant ruby in color, a pleasurable bouquet, warm and intense, full and dry in flavor, lightly tannic, muscular, dense, and with a lovely structure, much character".
Like many lesser known Italian grape just beginning to be vinified, aged, and bottled on their own, Uva di Troia requires study and experimentation, and needs serious work in the vineyard and in the cellar to realize its full potential. Lower yields will be necessarily to bring it to proper ripeness, and a careful analysis of its tannins and overall flavor structure will be essential in order to avoid the precocious picking which result in excessive asperity and astringence in the past. And a proper use of oak in the cellar will doubtlessly be equally important in softening and rounding the structure and texture, in giving a certain velvet to the density and richness which are part of the grape's genetic patrimony. But, most of all, the variety will need producers who believe in it and who are disposed to invest the time, energy, and capital necessary to give it an identity and create a market for the wines. And in this it resembles a good number of lesser known Italian varietals, whose unjustified obscurity is frequently in inverse proportion to the obvious high quality which they are capable of giving.
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SAGRANTINO
Sagrantino, more widely known until quite recently as Sagrantino di Montefalco, has emerged as one of Italy's most important wines in the 1990's, first with its promotion to DOCG status in 1992, but more importantly as a result of a series of superior vintages and exceptionally fine wines from the leading producers of the zone. The sheer excellence of these bottles immediately aroused the interest of the world's wine press, which was quick t identify them - often in ecstatically enthusiastic prose - as some of Italy's most outstanding, worthy challengers to the best Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello, and Bolgheri, all areas with a significantly larger visibility, and, except for Bolgheri, a notably longer history.
Despite this new renown, Sagrantino is something of an anomaly in Italy in that the variety appears to have been of little interest to chroniclers in the past; in historical terms, in fact, there exists little in terms of documented information on the grape and its wines. The lack of hard evidence has led to a certain amount of wild and improbable theorizing: Sagrantino's presence in Montefalco has been attributed to followers of Saint Francis of Assisi who flocked to this part of Umbria from all over Italy, bringing their local grapes with them, or even to Saracen invaders. Current thinking, instead, considers Sagrantino as an entirely local variety, indigenous to a small corner of the province of Perugia.
Less obscure are the reasons for the limited diffusion of the variety and the small volume of wine produced until recently. In the past, Sagrantino was regularly described as "irregular" and "unproductive" as a variety, characteristics which made it anything but unpopular in an epoch in which large crops were the single most important factor in determining the choice of grapes to be cultivated. The small amount of wine produced was of two types now of little significance: one for blending with other grapes, the other for a dried-grape - "passito" - dessert offering.
All of this has changed radically over the past decade and Sagrantino is increasingly recognized as a variety of uncommon attributes. Properly cultivated in vineyards which have been programmed and pruned to keep yields under control, the grape is capable of giving some of the world's richest, most concentrated wines. All the parameters by which wine is measured - dry extract, polyphenols, flavonoids - indicate that this is a wine of uncommon impact, intensity, length, and grip. Taming this raw power requires all of the winemaker's art during the fermentation of the grapes and the subsequent aging of the wines, but informed and intelligent cellar work gives extremely rewarding results. The use of small barrels, with a high proportion of new oak as well, has done much to soften the wine's very perceptible tannins, adding suppleness and polish to the undeniable concentration and depth. The proper use of wood in the aging process has also solved one of the wine's major problems in the past: the rustic, often funky, aromas and flavors which, together with hard tannins, gave the unfortunate impression of a wine lacking in elegance. But this is the last thing which can be said of the best current efforts of the zone, wines of true - and now internationally recognized - distinction.
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CILIEGIOLO
Ciliegiolo, a red grape variety of somewhat uncertain origins, has aroused new interest and attention since late 1980's and early 1990's as new wines, made with an altogether different approach, began to demonstrate that the grape could new, and unexpectedly high quality, levels.
The first documented references to the variety are from the early 17th century when the Florentine writer Soderini described a "Ciregiuolo dolce" with a long bunch, a somewhat large berry, and a sweet - "dolce" - and fragrant flavor. This description of the physical characteristics of the variety corresponds to present-day Ciliegiolo, as does the observation that the grape does best in notably warm climates.
There exists, nonetheless, in popular and folk descriptions of Ciliegiolo, another tradition which attributes the origins of the grape to Spain and ascribes its presence in Italy to pilgrims who returned with it to Italy from the sanctuary of Saint James in Compostella. Hence the other name once widely used for the grape in Italy: "Ciliegiona rossa tonda di Spagna", or the "red and round Ciliegiona of Spain".
At the present time, Ciliegiolo is cultivated almost exclusively in Umbria and Tuscany, though the two regions give distinctly different wines. The Ciliegiolo of Umbria, grown in an inland area with a somewhat cool, continental climate, is a light, fruity wine meant to be drunk young, much like one of the simpler types of Beaujolais.
In Tuscany, instead, beginning with vintages at the end of the 1980's, a warmer, more maritime climate and a more ambitious winemaking philosophy have given startlingly different results: wines of important size and weight, warm, generous, long, and authoritative. These have come principally from the Maremma, the coastal area of the region, in particular the province of Grosseto, where hot summer temperatures and an important luminosity confirm Soderini's remarks that Ciliegiolo seems destined to give its finest results in zones with adequate - i.e. elevated - heat.
The warmth of the Maremma's growing season is reflected in well made Ciliegiolo, a wine whose generosity and sweetness of fruit are unmistakeably Mediterranean. But climate is only part of the story: careful study of the grape's characteristics has led to the use of new vinification and aging techniques, essential to the attainment of desired results. "Bleeding" of the fermentation tanks to increase the percentage of skins to juice and an improved extraction has given new structure and concentration to the wines, while the use of small oak barrels for aging has given a new spiciness and complexity to the exceptional fruitiness which remains Ciliegiolo's calling card, the aspect of its personality which interests and gratifies consumers who have found in this wine a new, and highly enjoyable, tasting experience.
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NERO D'AVOLA
Nero d'Avola is Sicily's most significant high quality red variety, one which is attracting increasing interest in recent years as new wines, made either principally or exclusively from this grape, have given important and impressive results. The variety is, on its native island, widely known under the alternative name of "Calabrese", but its origins are indisputably Sicilian and any attribution to Calabria, just across the Straight of Messina on the Italian mainland, is to be regarded an inaccurate. The town of Avola, in fact, is in the province of Syracuse, the southeastern corner of Sicily, where elevated summer temperatures give grapes of exemplary ripeness and sweetness and wines which are dark and deep in color, alcoholic, warm, and dense in texture. Pachino is particularly noted for the quality of its Nero d'Avola and can be regarded, in a certain sense, as the variety's historic cru, the sub-zone where, in the past, it gave the highest level results. Geography is one key to this success: this part of Sicily is very far to the south indeed, and Cape Passero, the southeastern tip of the island, not far from Pachino, is further south than the North African city of Tunis.
If the quality of Nero d'Avola as a grape has long been known and appreciated, the same cannot be said of the wines made from the variety. And, for a very simple reason: very little of the wine was ever bottled, as its principal use was for blending. Tanker ships once regularly departed from the ports of southeastern Sicily for Sète in the French Midi, and the dark and alcoholic wine they carried was of major assistance to the thinner and weaker wines of Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon. Over the past several decades Nero d'Avola has become equally popular with Italian vintners and is regularly requested to beef up unsuccessful vintages in various parts of the Italian north. In this context, an accurate evaluation of the real quality potential of Nero d'Avola was not an easy task, and the lack of important bottles was obviously a major impediment in the development of any real consumer interest in wines made from the variety.
All of this has changed radically over the past decade and a half as several of Sicily's historic houses have begun to produce Nero d'Avola of unquestionably high level; in so doing, and in bottling the wine entirely on its own, they have also managed to demonstrate that the variety gives complete and satisfying wines by itself, in no need of corrective blending with other grapes. They have also managed to demonstrate another important fact: Nero d'Avola does not seem to be confined to any one specific area. When properly cultivated, fermented and aged, it has given entirely successful results in the island's center and close to the northeastern coast, areas with which, in the past, it was not identified. Cultivation of Nero d'Avola has now spread to the southwestern corner of the island, the province of Trapani, historically Sicily's center of white wine production. And here as well it has demonstrated a significant geographical versatility with wines of size, structure, and length.
In all of these areas Nero d'Avola has shown a constant character and one which indicates that, though different soils, altitudes, and exposures undoubtedly have an impact on final results, the power of the variety is one which comes through and expresses itself in unambiguous fashion. Nero d'Avola is deep in tonality, with abundant coloring matter in its skins which is immediately transferred to the wines. An important accumulator of sugars, it gives wines of much warmth and immediate alcoholic impact, full and substantial on the nose and palate with aromas and flavors of plums and wild cherries, sweet, jammy, and quite Mediterranean in personality. Very well suited to oak aging, it has shown an important affinity both to barrels and casks, gaining in complexity and firmness and in aging ability as well.
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NERO BUONO DI CORI
Grape varieties with a somewhat limited geographical extension are not unknown in the world of wine, but Nero Buono di Cori is somewhat unusual even in a context of this sort. The variety appears to be cultivated almost exclusively in and around the territory of Cori, a township located in the province of Latina some thirty five miles to the south of Rome. The town is in the area of the Latium region known as "Ciociara", whose inhabitants took their name from the "cioce", or sandals with leg wrappings which resemble puttees, once worn by the agricultural laborers of the zone. Ciociara is better known nowadays for its full-flavored, rustic cuisine which has given many dishes to the popular restaurants and taverns of Rome: spaghetti alla carbonara, with eggs and bacon added to the pasta; tasty sauces featuring chicken livers and gizzards; bean soup; pasta e fagioli, pasta in a bean sauce with abundant seasoning of rosemary.
In vinous terms, Latium is best known for the white wines produced in copious quantities from vineyards to the southeast of Rome, an area generally known as the Castelli Romani. Some red wine is produced to the south of Rome, in the provinces of Latina and Frosinone, but principally from various types of the Cesanese grape and of very varying quality. Wines from Nero Buono di Cori, therefore, represent something of a break with local habits, an attempt to make serious and ambitious red wines in an area with little of this kind of tradition. At the same time, however, it is obviously an attempt to bring to light an important potential of the zone, previously little appreciated and certainly not the object of sustained efforts by local producers.
The first results, accordingly, are only indicative, by no means definitive, but they suggest that Nero Buono di Cori is capable of giving wines of good color and concentration, of significant aging potential, and anything but the type of quaffing wine that Latium has previously been better known for. The tannins are firm, the acidity sustained and bracing, and the wine seems to fall into the family represented by Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, austere and of important structure, not immediately seductive but well worth the patience to await the rounding and softening that proper winemaking techniques - including warm fermentations of a certain length and an intelligent use of oak barrels for aging - can give.
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VERMENTINO
Vermentino has become an increasingly popular white variety in the Western Mediterranean, with a growing interest in the wines made from the grape reflected in a growing acreage in southern France and the northwestern coast of Italy. Vermentino's origins are not entirely clear: many consider it a Spanish grape, from Aragon in Spain's northeast to be precise, but the variety no longer seems to be cultivated in its alleged birthplace. It is found, instead, under the name of Malvasia Grossa, in various parts of Portugal, notably in the Douro and on the island of Madeira. More than 2500 acres of Vermentino currently are currently cultivated on the island of Corsica under the names both of Malvasia and of Malvoisie. Acreage is increasing in the southern parts of mainland France as well, principally in Provence, but a growing interest is also perceptible in Languedoc-Roussillon, an area in which Vermentino was once virtually unknown.
Italy is, nonetheless, the undisputed center of Vermentino cultivation, and the current acreage of Corsica can surely be traced back to the fact that the island once belonged to Genoa. Vermentino has an important place in the viticulture of Sardinia (once a Genovese possession as well), in various appellations both to the east and to the west of Genoa along the coast of Liguria, a region of which the city is the capital, and in the maritime zones of Tuscany, in particular the provinces of Massa-Carrara and Livorno.
Verentino is a versatile grape in that it can give both wines of excellent fruit and freshness, ideal accompaniments to antipasto, seafood, shellfish, and vegetable dishes, and more serious and ambitious wines in the specific sub-zones where it attains superior ripeness and richness. English critic Jancis Robinson summed up Vermentino's virtues in a pithy, but precise phrase: "body, acidity, and perfume are its hallmarks: a good combination". As consumer interest in the wines grows, further improvements in the wines and a large awareness of the qualities are highly likely.
At the present moment, the finest Vermentino is produced in two specific spots: the northeastern part of Sardinia known as Gallura, where hot summertime temperatures and the winds off the sea give grapes with an extra dimension of richness and concentration, and the steeply terraced, tightly-planted, old vineyards of the Candia area of Massa-Carrara. Here the wines are full and very long with a plenitude which is balanced by much finesse, a firm and sustaining acidity, and important, penetrating aromas of lemon, white fruits, and resin. These are wines with an important aging capacity, and the first experiments with barrel-aging seem to indicate that, when properly judged, a balanced contribution from oak can give wines of additional complexity and dimension.
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VERDICCHIO
Verdicchio is the most important white grape variety of the Marches, the central Italian region whose major city, Ancona, is one of the principal ports on the country's eastern coastline, directly across from Serbia on the Adriatic Sea. The grape itself seems to be a very ancient one indeed, as its name suggests: "Verdicchio" appears to be derived from the Latin viridis, or green, a clear reference both to the intense green of the berries of this last-ripening variety and the green highlights which are often visible in the wine itself. Many have identified Verdicchio with the "uva aminea" cited by Lucius Junius Columella, whose De Re Rustica was a fundamental treatise on the agriculture of the Roman Empire: Aminaea was an area near the city of Ascoli Piceno in the southern part of the Marches whose inhabitants were renowned for their viticultural abilities and their wines.
Despite the widely acknowledged quality of Verdicchio-based wines, the grape has, for the most part, had only a limited diffusion outside of its native region. This can be partially explained by the fact that the neighboring region of Abruzzo to the south already had its own widely cultivated variety, Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, while Umbria to the west was separated from the Marches by the barrier of the Apennine mountain chain. Verdicchio has been identified as the same grape as Trebbiano Bianco, once popular in Castelli Romani area of Latium where Frascati, Marino and other wines of this type are produced, but systematically replaced by the inferior - but more productive - Trebbiano Verde. It also appears to be identical to the Trebbiano di Soave and Trebbiano di Lugana, once cultivated near Lake Garda but likewise replaced by more abundant and vigorous types of Trebbiano as well.
That Verdicchio can give wines of very high quality indeed in its home territory of the Marches has been widely known for generations, and the judgment has only been reinforced by the dramatic improvement of the overall quality level over the last decade. Well made wines are quite fragrant, with aromas that frequently recall those of Gewürztraminer and Sauvignon, extract levels are quite high for a white wine, giving an undeniable density and sense of volume on the palate, and the refreshing acidity is an excellent guarantee of both freshness and longevity. Though the acidity level is relatively sustained, the wines' pH is somewhat high, giving a sense of roundness and softness which add to the pleasurability.
Verdicchio is cultivated in two distinct parts of the Marches, and the wines which the two areas yield, while obviously sharing a certain number of common characteristics, are, at the same time, strikingly different in terms of their overall personality. The first zone is the Verdicchio di Matelica appellation, located in the western part of the region in the province of Macerata. The vineyards are somewhat high, the influence of the sea little felt, and the cooling winds of the Apennines of great importance for the local micro-climate. The grapes ripen slowly and are normally picked rather late, often in mid-October. The resulting wines, austere and powerful in their youth, take some time to open up and can be some of Italy's longest-lived white wines of all.
The second zone - notably larger in terms of total vineyard surface - is the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi denomination in the province of Ancona, which takes its name from the many castles which dot the hillsides of the zone. Here the vineyards are significantly lower in altitude, the climate sunnier and warmer, though breezes from the nearby Adriatic have a beneficial cooling effect during the months of July and August. The wines are rounder, riper, and sweeter, often quite generous with a volume and concentration that give virtually a sense of viscosity to the wine's texture.
The improvement of the wines, with the emergence of many new small and medium-sized bottlers who had previously sold their grapes to larger négociant houses, is principally a phenomenon of the 1990's, though good bottles of Verdicchio were by no means difficult to find even before. All of this has been accomplished despite a viticulture which, to be frank, reflected the emphasis of large volumes of wine which characterized much of post-war Italy. Yields per acre have been high, and, given the low-density vineyards which still prevail, yields per vine even higher. That the wines, in many cases, have been so interesting is a tribute in itself to the grape's intrinsic personality and potential. New vineyards, with more quality-oriented criteria, will unquestionably lead to further improvements in the grapes which will be harvested and future wines. As will new ideas in the cellar: obsessions with safety and cleanliness have, in the past, led to excessive fining and filtration which have tended to strip the wines of much of their character. A new naturalism will undoubtedly correct these excesses and lead to more natural wines which express as directly as possible the specific character of the specific production zones and the variety itself. Which, in the latter case, is a strong and distinctive one indeed.
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ANSONICA
Ansonica is the central Italian name for the grape variety known as Inzolia in Sicily, its probable first home. Though by no means as popular as the far more widely planted Catarratto, Inzolia enjoys a reputation as the island's major grape for white wines of a certain style and class; it has long been noted for the important results it achieves in areas to the east of Palermo, in particular the area of Bagheria and Casteldaccia where Sicily's first dry white wines were produced early in the 19th century..
The exact path of transmission from the southern Mediterranean to Italian regions significantly further north is not completely clear, but the fact that the grape is planted principally in coastal areas leads to the logical assumption that it was transported by sea. That the grape was known around Naples many centuries ago is proven by its inclusion in the famous horticultural catalogue of F. Cuprani, Hortus Catholicus, published in that city in 1695.
At the present time, however, Ansonica appears to be an almost exclusive speciality of the Tuscan Maremma, the coastal part of the region which consists of the two provinces of Livorno and Grosseto. Even in so limited an area, interestingly enough, the variety seems to have selected a few chosen places where it gives it finest results: the island of Elba, the island of Giglio, and the Argentario peninsula, the last of these now an important vacation spot known for its villas and hotels, its white beaches, and the crystalline waters off its shores. The summertime heat of these spots is of undoubted advantage to Ansonica, by no means an early ripener and a grape which benefits substantially from high temperatures and the superior luminosity furnished by the proximity of the sea.
In this type of environment, Ansonica reaches interesting levels of ripeness and gives a wine of significant fullness and weight, golden in color and with a pleasing roundness from its relatively low acidity. Experiments with oak aging, first attempted in Sicily during the later 1980's, have proven equally successful in Tuscany and enliven the wine's weight and presence on the palate with a satisfyingly spicy complexity. That Ansonica can give wines of important size is evident from analytic data which have been gathered in Italy: with alcohol levels which can easily surpass 15° and a dry extract of more than 30 grams per liter, Ansonica is a variety capable of giving very substantial wines indeed, and ones with a distinctive and most enjoyable personality.
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RIBOLLA GIALLA
Ribolla Gialla has been cultivated for many centuries in the far northeastern corner of Italy, on both sides of the border between Friuli and - formerly part of Yugoslavia - the newly independent country of Slovenia. What is known as Ribolla on the Italian side of the boundary is, in fact, called Rebola in Slovenia; both correspond to the Robola of the Greek island of Cephalonia. Though one might expect that it was the Greeks who brought the variety to Italy, as the most common pattern of grape migration has historically been from east to west, in this case the flow was exactly the opposite: it was almost certainly Venetian merchants, who once dominated this part of the Mediterranean, who carried Ribolla to the island in the Ionian Sea.
Ribolla, in any case, is one of the Italian grape varieties with the longest documented history, praised in the chronicles of Francesco di Manzano in the twelfth century A.D. and widely lauded by German chroniclers and poets at the end of the fourteenth century. The wine already had a significant enough reputation for Boccaccio to include it in his remonstrances against the sin of gluttony. Extensively cultivated in the provinces of both Udine and Gorizia, it was an integral part of the gastronomy and local wine culture until the end of the 19th century. The ravages of the phylloxera vine louse led, here as elsewhere in Europe, to extensive replanting of the vineyards, and, in this process, Ribolla Gialla - the superior type of the grape, preferred to the more pedestrian Ribolla Verde - began to lose ground to more fashionable white grapes from France, in particular Sauvignon and various members of the Pinot family. Over the past fifteen years, however, the variety has staged an important come-back as both producers and wine lovers sought to preserve this and other parts of the local patrimony and avoid the standardization and anonymity which increasingly threaten world wine markets.
That Ribolla Gialla has a distinctive personality to offer is obvious as soon as the wine is tasted: the rather unusual balance of its acidity, with a high proportion of tartaric compared to other acids, give it a freshness and vivacity which are immediately recognizable. The grape seems to have a good affinity to wood, and experiments with fermentation in oak - casks rather than barrels to better respect the variety's integrity - have given generally positive results. Equally satisfying have been trials of barrel aging, though somewhat larger formats - the 130 gallon tonneau rather than the standard 60 gallon barrel of Burgundy and Bordeaux - appear more appropriate to a wine whose virtue lies more in its finesse than in important weight and volume. These latter aspects, however, can be decisively improved by a well calculated period of maceration on the skins before the initial phases of fermentation, another techniques which is now being widely employed.
AGLIANICO
Aglianico appears to be one of the oldest grape varieties to be cultivated in a systematic fashion in Italy, a conclusion which can be deduced from the name of the grape itself: "aglianico" is a corruption of ellenico, the Italian word for "Hellenic" or, more simply, Greek. And Aglianico, in fact, appears to be of Greek origin, brought to a wide area to the south of Rome by settlers whose colonies dotted various regions of today's southern Italy - Sicily, Calabria, Apulia, and Campania - and created the cultural and political area known as Magna Graecia, "Greater Greece". Naples, just to take one example, takes its name from the Greek colony known as Neapolis (polis, the word from which "politics" is derived, being of course the Greek word for a city-state), and the temples created for the colonists' religious rites can be seen - often still an impressive, even awe-inspiring, sight - at Agrigento, Segesta, and Selinunte in Sicily and at Paestum to the south of Naples and Salerno. The splendid simplicity of the last of these sites has inspired countless visitors over recent years, prominent among them Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and was of fundamental importance for the neo-classical movement in architecture of the second half of the 18th century and the revival of respect for and interest in the Doric order as a fundamental element of architecture.
Greek colonies tended to be grouped along the coastline, as sea transport was, until the recent past, far more efficient, economical, and rapid than overland travel. Aglianico, instead, has migrated from the coast to the interior of the peninsula and, until the 1990's, important wines from the grape were produced almost exclusively around Avellino, the easternmost province of the region of Campania, and to the northwest of Potenza, the principal city and provincial capital of the Basilicata region. The reason for this abandonment of the coastline is not difficult to explain: the fall of the Roman Empire and the dissolution both of the authority of the state and settled and stable conditions of life led to centuries of strife and upheaval marked by barbarian invasions and constant raids from the sea on the part of hostile fleets or pirate bands. The inevitable breakdown of the Roman system of dams, dikes, and canals, obviously connected to these chaotic conditions, also contributed to the spread of marsh and swampland in lower-lying coastal areas and the creation of excellent breeding areas for mosquitoes and malaria. The interior was by far a safer and more salubrious place, and the high hills and the first slopes of the Apennine mountain chain furnished both easily defensible sites and settlements with a built-in early-warning system: from heights of 1500-2000 feet above sea level, the approach of hostile or menacing bands could be perceived well in advance, with the obvious advantages which an ample margin of time for organizing defense and resistance offered.
Plantings of Aglianico have greatly increased during the post-World War II period, and a significant part of the new vineyards have returned, in a sort of reverse migration towards the coastline, to the probable first areas where the variety appeared millennia ago, even though the lion's share of the new acreage is in the provinces of Benevento, adjacent to Avellino, and in the eastern part of the province of Caserta, once again somewhat towards the interior. The grape has, however, returned to the province of Salerno as well and is now cultivated, and made into very good wine, virtually in the shadow of the magnificent Doric temples of Paestum. Plantings have also appeared in the valley of the Biferno River in Molise, a region suspended between the influence of Abruzzo to the north and that of Campania to the west. And, finally, valid and well made Aglianico wines have begun to appear in the northwestern part of Apulia, principally in the province of Bari, where the land begins to rise towards the northeastern corner of Basilicata. Total vineyard acreage was already close to 35,000 acres in 1991 and it seems safe to say that it is now significantly larger: the quality of many of the new Aglianico-based wines has given an important boost to the visibility and popularity of the variety.
The reasons for the new respect and interest in this ancient grape can be quickly enumerated. The principal one, needless to say, is the quality of the wines themselves: the intensity, concentration, and length of a well made Aglianico from grapes that have been properly cultivated in the vineyard is matched by very few wines in Italy or, for that matter, other parts of the world. A firm ruby red in color, the wines are particularly rich in dry extract: levels of 30 grams per liter are quite common and 35 grams per liter anything but unusual, figures which even the most powerful Cabernet or Syrah-based wines rarely match. It is, accordingly, no surprise to find that these wines have an excellent aging ability as well; various vintages of the Taurasi Riserva of the Mastroberardino firm of the late 1960's, the leading examples of Aglianico in that period, are still drinking very well today, again something which can be said of very few of the world's most renowned wines.
Given these sterling attributes and qualities, one might logically ask why the grape is not more widely cultivated and why more outstanding examples of the wine have not been available until recent years. The answer, quite simply, is the difficulty the variety poses in the vineyard: despite popular ideas of southern Italy as a land of palm trees and constant heat and sunshine, Aglianico's native territory, the interior of the mainland's south, is a high and hilly area, cut off from maritime influences which might mitigate the rigor of the climate, and temperatures at these altitudes, in narrow valleys which often create conditions of shade as well, are far from balmy. They are, in fact, frequently notably cooler than those of places much further to the north such as Florence or Bologna. The result is that Aglianico has an extremely long cycle in the vineyard and its growing season is one of the longest of any significantly cultivated grape. Harvests before mid-October are almost unheard of, and in the classic areas around Avellino and Potenza the harvest traditionally begins on All Saints Day, November 1st. The risks of losing a substantial part of the harvest to rain and rot have, in the past, induced many growers to begin picking earlier, with results which are anything but satisfactory: the wines tend to be tough and astringent, with drying tannins which are far from pleasurable.
Better viticulture, with smaller yields per acre, are one solution and have characterized the work of more serious producers during the 1990's. The future unquestionably lies in more tightly spaced vineyards, with a significantly larger number of vines per acre to allow growers to combine quality (smaller yields per vine) and a satisfactory crop size (from a larger number of vines per vineyard surface). Some of the newer areas for Aglianico, located at lower altitudes and closer to the sea, will also benefit from the advantage of a somewhat shorter growing season and earlier harvests. But only relatively so: it is highly unlikely that fine wine can be produced from grapes harvested much before the middle of October, and patience and courage, the qualities which counted most in the past, will still be required in the future. Aglianico has also benefited from the quality revolution which has taken place in other parts of Italy and the advances in technical and scientific knowledge and awareness which this revolution has made available to producers in all parts of the country. The importance of clean and fresh wood, with a regular replacement of casks and barrels in the cellar, is one such advance in knowledge and understanding, and its application in the two major DOC zones for the grape, Aglianico del Vulture and Taurasi, has led to rounder, sweeter, and more complex wines, notably softer and with more fruit, which have already established an important position in the market and given new renown to a variety which was already being cultivated in Italy when Hesiod was writing his Works and Days.
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LAGREIN
Lagrein, the most important - in terms of quality - native variety cultivated in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy's north, was long thought to come from the Lagarina valley in the province of Trento. This hypothesis, based in reality on nothing much more significant than the similarity of the two names, has now been disproven by historical research: the grape is known to have been cultivated in the fields adjacent to the Benedictine monastery of Gries, located in the immediate western suburbs of the city of Bolzano, since the 17th century. Gries is still the epicentre of Lagrein cultivation, and the cooperative winery located in this former village, now virtually engulfed by the urban sprawl of the provincial capital of the Alto Adige, is still by far the largest producer of Lagrein-based wines. Small quantities of Lagrein are cultivated in the southern half of this region, Trentino, particularly in towns and villages to the north of the city of Trento such as Faedo, Lavis, Mezzolombardo, Rovere della Luna, and Sorni, all a significant distance away from the Val Lagarina, It seems safe to say, at this point, that any connection between the name of the valley and the name of the grape is purely fortuitous.
The variety, nonetheless, is more clearly identified with the northern part of the region, the Alto Adige, than Trentino, and this because of the larger role which it plays in the overall viticultural picture. Of Trentino's close to 24,000 acres of vineyards, a mere 500 were planted to Lagrein in 2001, and even this small percentage - little more than 2% - represented a sizeable advance compared to twenty years previously: in the early 1980's, the grape represented a miniscule 1.2% of the total vineyard surface and was dwarfed by the dominant white varieties, particularly Chardonnay, which gave an entirely different image to Trentino wines. In the Alto Adige, instead, 700 acres of Lagrein vineyards out of a total of 12,350 make the variety a grape of some significance, some 5.7% of the overall acreage, a force to be reckoned with in the context of a viticulture which cultivates many different varieties, none a dominating one.
As a wine, Lagrein has become notably more visible and requested during the second half of the 1990's, a trend which seems destined to increase in the near future - the interest in specific local varieties has also involved Gewürztraminer, the white grape counterpart to Lagrein in the Alto Adige, i.e. something with roots and a history in its own particular territory, as opposed to grapes which are cultivated all over the world - as markets and individual consumers have become aware of the highly individual character and personality of the wines which the grape gives. The wines themselves, nonetheless, have greatly changed over the past decade: Lagrein was previously made in two different styles: one, Lagrein Kretzer, was simply a rosé wine and was in fact known in Trentino as Lagrein Rosato. The second, a fairly deep colored red wine, was known as Lagrein Dunkel (Lagrein Scuro in Trentino), or "dark Lagrein". Strange as it may seem, given that we are living in a period in which red wines of some power, authority, and depth of color are much in demand, the rosé version of the wine was, until recently, by far the more popular, and the cooperative winery of Gries, always the bellwether house for judging market demand and trends, previously channelled two thirds of the grapes which it received towards the production of this type of wine; red Lagrein, effectively speaking, was very much a step-child for cultivators and producers. These percentages, at the beginning of the third millennium A.D., have now been reversed and, to employ a phrase of Bob Dylan, you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.
Lagrein's new popularity, however, has not led to a substantial increase in plantings in the Alto Adige, but rather a closer attention to its cultivation in the vineyard and its fermentation and aging in the cellar. The reason is a fairly simply one: the grape is fairly fussy about the types of soil in which it wishes to be cultivated and the microclimate of the zone in which it is grown, and has always given by far its best results in a rather restricted area, that just to the west of the city of Bolzano. Though this city is located in the far north of Italy, less than fifty miles from the Brenner Pass and the border with Austria, it is regularly one of the hottest in the entire country during the summer months. The city itself sits in a plain near the confluence of the Adige and the Isarco rivers, surrounded by a ring of heat-trapping hills known as the Conca di Bolzano, the "Bolzano amphitheatre", which cause temperatures to build up rapidly during daytime hours. The cooler slopes to the east of the city tend to host the local Schiava grape, but the plain to the west of the city, particularly the part which extends from Gries to Siebeneich ("Seven Oaks") and then Terlano, sits on a bed of alluvial rock and gravel which have been transported to the area and then deposited over the course of many millennia by the local rivers and streams. The stony soil heats up during the day and stores and re-radiates its warmth during the evening and nights when temperatures in the hills tend to descend fairly rapidly. All of these factors - soil, microclimate, topography - are of fundamental importance in ripening Lagrein and enabling it to lose the excessively mineral quality and bitterness of flavor which have impeded the commercial success of the wine in the past. It might be added at this point that the very abundant production of the local pergola-trained vineyards did little to assist ripening, and the combination of a large crop and shading from the heavy foliage of this kind of trellising had far from positive effects on the wine's flavors and tannins.
Though Bolzano continues to the center of quality Lagrein production, the grape has also found a welcoming home in other parts of the valley, logically enough in the warmer southern sector near the villages of Termeno, Cortaccia, and Magrè. The geology of this part of the Alto Adige is significantly different from that of the area between Gries and Terlano, but Lagrein, like most of the world's grapes, does not have an absolutely exclusive relationship with one, and only one, soil type. This microclimate is sufficiently warm to fully ripen the variety, and the southeastern exposure of the vineyards gives the grapes plenty of warming sunlight in the morning, particularly important towards the end of the summer and during the first part of autumn when nights grow cold in these sub-Alpine latitudes and the first daytime hours can be distinctly chilly. Sites need to be chosen well, but when they are they can give quite valid examples of Lagrein, the equal in quality, if slightly different in character, from those of the classic area near Bolzano.
The wine itself - the red version, which is likely to be of far greater interest to today's consumers than the rosé - has a distinctive personality which is not particularly difficult to describe. The color of well made bottles is decisively ruby, and can take on purple highlights in superior vintages such as 1997, the aromas are of red fruit (particularly plums), violets, and liquorice, the flavours solid and firm with tannins which add grip without bite, long and with an easily identifiable mineral note on the finish. The bitterness which characterized the wines of the past - to the point that many commentators identified it as what the French call gout de terroir, the identifying note of an entire territory, not realizing that Lagrein was regularly blended into Pinot Noir and Schiava-based wines, adding its personality to theirs - was simply the result of over-cropping, early picking, and misguided fermentations, often at unsuitably low temperatures which did not succeed in softening the grape's tannins. Better viticultural and oenological habits have had a tonic effect on the wines, and the use of small oak barrels to fix the color, add a certain sweetness to the flavors, and round off the tannins, a general practice since the mid-1990's and is unquestionably a supplementary factor in the new popularity of a wine previously considered pretty much a curiosity or a purely local taste.
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CORVINA
With over twenty thousand acres planted to the variety, Corvina is of notable significance in the viticulture of Italy's northeast. The grape is somewhat anomalous, however, in terms of its geographical diffusion: despite the fact that it is, as we shall see, the basis of the blend of two of Italy's best known and popular wines, Corvina, effectively speaking, is cultivated almost exclusively in the province of Verona. The Illasi river valley to the east of the city of Romeo and Juliet and the regional border with Lombardy to the west are virtually fixed borders beyond which the variety has declined - or has been forbidden - to move.
If Corvina is something of a homebody - or couch potato, to use a more recent phrase - in terms of the areas which it finds congenial, it somewhat compensates for its disinclination to rove by the intensity with which it wishes to be cultivated in its home territory. Vineyard surface in the two DOC zones in which it is the basis of the blend, Bardolino and Valpolicella, are quite sizeable, over 6500 acres in the case of the former, a startling 15,000 acres for the latter. Not all of these acres are Corvina, as both Rondinella and Molinara are part of the blend, but these are minority partners: particularly in the Valpolicella, Corvina is by far the dominant grape and its position has grown even stronger over the past fifteen years as better producers seek more structure and depth in the wines, qualities which Rondinella and Molinara cannot provide.
Volumes of wine are even larger, for Corvina is a very generous producer in the vineyard: over 5.3 million gallons in the case of Bardolino and more than 10.2 million gallons in the case of Valpolicella. These are two of Italy's most important appellations in terms of annual production, both in fact regularly in the top ten, and the abundant yields of Corvina make the province of Verona one of Italy's most important sources of wine: only the provinces of Trapani and Agrigento in Sicily and Teramo in Abruzzo produce more wine in a normal vintage.
Quality, however, as is usually the case, has not been helped by this emphasis on pumping the maximum amount of juice out of every square yard of the vineyard, and in the post-war period, particularly in the decades between 1950 and 1980, both Valpolicella and Bardolino sunk in reputation and prestige; the oversize bottle of Valpolicella ran the serious risk, along with the Chianti flask and garlands of garlic and hot peppers hung from the ceiling, of becoming - particularly outside of Italy - part of the kitsch décor of restaurants and bistros whose "Italian" character was mere veneer and the food itself bad publicity for Italian cuisine.
All of this was a shame, for Corvina is a grape of character and quality, a fact which the wines of the better producers of the 1980's and 1990's have demonstrated, rapidly creating a new and more positive image for the wines for which it has been used and, in the case of Amarone, an entirely new and demanding international clientele for a wine which had been more or less a local curiosity. Descriptions of the wines of the earlier period - "Valpolicella …. is one of Italy's most tempting light reds, always reminding one of cherries, combining the smooth and the lively" is a classic example from a best-selling encyclopedia on wine of some years ago - have little to do with current versions of Valpolicella which combine depth of color, fruit, and size. The smoothness and the liveliness have remained, but "light red" is anything but an accurate description of what Corvina, at its best, can give.
The major step in the transformation of Valpolicella, Amarone, and Recioto - the three most serious Corvina-based wines - was, necessarily, a critical revision of the vineyard work, a matter not facilitated by the traditional training system in use, the pergola, an overhead training system which in English could well be called an arbour. The fruit-bearing canes are very long, a fact which is taken into account during winter pruning, and practice had hardened into an ideology in the Valpolicella during the first post-war decades: Corvina, it was declared, could not be pruned short (which would have automatically cut back on yields) because the first fruit-bearing buds on the cane, those nearest the trunk, are infertile in this variety and do not give fruit. The truth, instead, was the exact opposite: many years of over-abundant production from long canes had in fact produced a fairly systematic infertility in the first buds but, when pruners began to cut back in the vineyard, these - not the first two but all of the subsequent ones - regained their fertility fairly rapidly. The new vineyards of quality-oriented producers, accordingly, are wire-trained, planted with a minimum of 2000 vines per acre, and pruned - normally using the classic cane-and-spur system named for Jules Guyot - reasonably short. The improvement in grape quality has been dramatic, as has that of the wines.
A concluding word, at this point, might usefully be dedicated to Amarone and Recioto, the two dried-grape wines so closely associated with the Valpolicella. Their production has a millennial history, documented in the works of the Roman historian Cassiodorus (490-583 A.D.), who described the rich, sweet red wines of the Rhaetic hills to the north of Verona. Virgil also praised these wines, and undoubtedly knew them well - he was born and raised in Mantua, a mere thirty miles to the south of Verona. Corvina is a natural candidate for these wines: its fairly thick skin is quite resistant to the potentially mould-producing humidity of northern Italian autumns and winters and its medium-sized berry benefits from the evaporation of moisture which occurs during the drying process. The grapes are normally pressed during the early winter months and give two different kinds of wine: Amarone, normally completely dry, powerful, alcoholic, and concentrated, an excellent match for rich and fully seasoned meat and game dishes or well aged cheese, and Recioto, usually fairly sweet, like Port an excellent after dinner wine to accompany conversation and/or cigars and a most agreeable foil for desserts and strong or blue cheese. Not many grapes can supply a full range of wines for the entire meal, but Corvina, in its various versions, demonstrates just this ample versatility.
CASAVECCHIA
Though Italy is a country with many little-known grapes hidden away in the peninsula's nooks and crannies, few varieties are as obscure as Casavecchia, now beginning to attract attention in the province of Caserta to the north of Naples. Literally nothing seems to be known about its history, to the point that many attribute its name to an "old house" (which is precisely the meaning of Casavecchia in Italian), a tumble-down stone farmhouse to be precise, near which, in the early years of the twentieth century, the last surviving example of the variety was found, a massive old vine with a trunk over a yard in diameter which had somehow managed to resist the twin ravages of oidium and phylloxera and remained defiantly alive. According to this local legend, all the Casavecchia vines currently in existence can trace their existence to this chance discovery, having been reproduced from this massive grandfather plant by the technique - described in the ancient world by Roman writer Columella - of leading a shoot from the trunk, burying it, still attached to the mother vine, below ground until it developed it own roots, and only then severing it so that the newly established vine could lead it own independent existence.
An attractive story, to be sure, but one with perhaps too heady a dose of folklore and apocrypha. Fables about entire grape species saved from extinction by the discovery of one forgotten specimen abound in the literature of Italy and other parts of Europe, and more than a few producers now operating in Friuli are quick to claim that they have saved Pignolo from certain disappearance by locating and caring for the last vine or two near the Abbey of Rosazzo, and a healthy amount of skepticism is doubtlessly more than warranted in the face of accounts of these miraculous last-minute rescue operations. Other equally unproven hypotheses connect the grape, which is cultivated in a very limited area indeed comprising the townships and neighboring areas of Pontelatone, Castel di Sasso, Formicola, and Liberi in the province of Caserta, with the renowned Trebulanum wine of the ancient world, which took its name from the hamlet of Trebula Baliniensis near Pontelatone. The habit, universally followed by both the Greeks and the Romans, of naming their wines for places rather than for the grape varieties used in their production, renders this claim both unproven and quite unprovable, though the reference to a once renowned wine from a given area does tend at least to demonstrate that the local climate and soil are propitious for high quality. Current scientific research, instead, has hypothesized that Casavecchia - unlike most grape varieties which are propagated from cuttings - developed in an entirely casual way from a grape seed which fell to earth and gave birth to a plant which was then further developed as its quality potential was recognized, a biography which, in its recognition of the haphazard, of sheer chance, seems to coincide more accurately to the variety's lack of any documented history.
Be that as it may, Casavecchia did manage to survive in its narrow home territory and appears to have given wine of real stature from the start, a fact which has unquestionably played a major role in its survival. Luigi Veronelli, Italy's premier wine and food writer, encountered Casavecchia - a serendipitous event during his exploration of the Campania region for a series of guide books published in Italy - near Castel di Sasso over thirty years ago. Cultivated in the unscientifically planted vineyards of the time, fermented and age with the notions of the peasant proprietors of the period, the wine nonetheless made an excellent impression: "complete and harmonious, a lovely red in color, it wishes and deserves to express all of its breed." The next step in rescuing the variety from its undeserved obscurity came from the joint effort of a handful of enterprising and courageous local growers and the oenology department of the University of Naples. The research carried out by the latter institution, in fact, has definitively excluded that Casavecchia is a type of Aglianico, a theory widely bruited about at one time, probably as a result of certain superficial resemblances between the wines of the two different grapes: both are rich in color, firm in structure, and, if properly cultivated and fermented, very powerful and concentrated. The first vintages of Casavecchia to be produced as such - the grape has only recently been recognized in its own right and added to Italy's register of authorized varieties - have only confirmed these initial impressions and created high expectations in the producers now working with the variety: to create a wine of real grip, authority, and depth is not an everyday occurrence and to be able to do so with a grape which is only available in a narrowly restricted zone seems almost too good to be true. One advantage which Casavecchia clearly has going for it are the rather unique characteristics of its bunches: somewhat largish and elongated in shape, they weight very little due to their limited fertility during the flowering. Many of the flowers are not pollinated and drop off, thus giving an open bunch with excellent circulation of air around the individual berries, highly advantageous for avoiding such grape diseases as mold and downy mildew. The low weight of the bunches and berries also creates a superior ratio of skins to juice during fermentation, always an important parameter for quality and one which promises well for a variety which, if it lacks a past, certainly will not be lacking for a future.
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MASSERETTA
Italy has a certain number of grape varieties with a rather limited utilization and influence in geographical terms, but Masseretta, also known as Barsaglina Nera, is one of the most specialized of all if one wishes to consider the area in which it is cultivated and fermented. Though almost certainly an indigenous Tuscan variety, it has chosen and stuck to a narrow space in its native region, a decision which is reflected in its name: its home is in the province of Massa Carrara, and the city of Massa, on the coast well to the north of Pisa, has unquestionably given its name to the grape, one which further reinforces its reputation as a strictly local phenomenon.
As a province, Massa Carrara is not particularly well known for its viticulture; its main claim to fame, in fact, come from the marble quarries in the mountains just inland from the coast near the city of Carrara which yield a pure a brilliant white stone much sought out by interior decorators and designers. It is even more prized by the world's greatest sculptors, who flock to the area either to live and work or to simply select the blocks which they intend to shape into works of art; one such Carrara aficionado was Henry Moore. The mountains descend almost all the way to the coast, and the viticulture of the area is distinguished by the difficult topography which has created some of the most striking vineyards in Italy or anywhere else in the world: a series of terraces hewn into the vertigo-inspiring steep slopes, they are planted as tightly as possible to take advantage of every centimeter of available space, often with close to four thousand vines per acre. Vineyards of this sort can only be worked by hand, as the steepness of the incline and the narrowness of the terraces make the use of a tractor completely out of the question, and the viticulture which has survived is the work of stubborn and courageous men and women who have decided to challenge the physical difficulties and the odds of surviving in such a high-cost environment. It is entirely logical, accordingly, that they are deeply attached to their local traditions, one of which is embodied in grapes such as Massaretta.
Historical references to Massaretta are few and far between: one, in the nineteenth century, from the well known Italian ampelographer Di Rovesenda, simply cites the grape without describing it, while the description of Marzotto in 1925 simply cribs the work of the ampelographical commission of the province of Massa Carrara. Modern studies have verified that the variety's physical characteristics make it likely candidate for the production of red wine of a certain level: the grape bunches are not excessively large and the berries, which tend to be smallish, contain juice which is already lightly colored even before fermentation begins. The first trial fermentations, both on the part of research institutes and of growers, have demonstrated that the wines are rich in color, a dark and deep ruby, and also high in polyphenols, the chemical components which give wines a sense of size, structure, concentration, and density. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first commercial vintages to be produced have also shown that the wine can be aged in oak with highly satisfactory results, giving a certain spicy complexity and sweetness to its fruit. At the moment, Masseretta-based wines are not entitled to appellation recognition and can only be marketed as Tuscan IGT wines, though a larger commercial production in Massa Carrara may yet change the status of these wines. The very few vines which have strayed across the border into neighboring Liguria (the province of La Spezia, to be specific) can be utilized in the blend of Colli di Luni appellation, not a name to be conjured with at the moment. The near-term future of the grape, accordingly and appropriately, will depend on the efforts of the growers of its home province, and it is to be hoped that this race of stubborn individualists, which has saved the variety from extinction, will devote their efforts to sustaining and improving the quality of the wines with the same dedication.
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PALLAGRELLO BIANCO
Pallagrello Bianco, a white grape variety cultivated to the north of Naples in the province of Caserta, has long suffered from the indignity of being confused with, indeed of being entirely idenitified as, a totally different grape known as Coda di Volpe Bianco ("Fox's Tail"). The error was extremely common in the literature of the nineteenth century, though it was already identified as such by in 1876 by G. Froio who, writing about the vineyards of the townships of Maddaloni and Caiazzo to the north of Caserta, spoke of both Coda di Volpe Bianco and Pallagrello as capable of giving "high quality and long-lasting wines".
In truth, Pallagrello and its admirable qualities were known and recognized even earlier. Ferdinand IV, the Bourbon king of Naples whose magnificent royal palace and park at Caserta, designed by Vanvitelli, could be termed the southern Italian version of Versailles, had his gardeners plant a semi-circular vineyard whose rows, laid out on the diagonal, gave the appearance of a fan, to the point that this part of the garden was known as the Vigna del Ventaglio, the "Fan Vineyard". In the Fan Vineyard were planted the most prized varieties of the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Pallagrello was given an honored place. And in 1729, poet Nicolò Giovo declared that he preferred Pallagrello wines to those of Vesuvius, to Moscato, to the wines of Orvieto, and even to "the French wines of Champagne". The sweetness of the grapes of this variety has apparently been long known: local housewives were accustomed to conserve dried Pallagrello grapes for use in the cakes and other pastry dishes for which the Campania region of southern Italy has long been famous.
Further historical details have long ago faded into the mists of time, though many authors claim that Pallagrello is of Greek origin, not a startlingly original hypothesis considering that the city of Naples was founded by Greek colonizers, that the temples of Paestum below Salerno are some of the most magnificent examples extant of monumental Doric architecture, that many episodes of Homer's Odyssey are clearly set in the Bay of Naples, and that many of Campania's major grape varieties - Aglianico ("Hellenic") and Greco - reveal by their very names their Greek provenance.
More interesting than the actual origin of the grape, however, are the physical characteristics of its bunches and berries and the sensory qualities of its wines. As far as the first aspect is concerned, Pallagrello has long been known for its small bunches and berries: writing in the mid-eighteenth century, historian Gianfrancesco Trutta had already noted the small berries which resembled pallette, or "pellets", always a factor for quality in wine grapes as it leads to a positive ratio of skins to juice. The variety is an important accumulator of sugar and is relatively low in acidity, two characteristics which have undoubtedly contributed to the widespread description of its wines as "sweet", not so much for any residual sugar, which is rarely present, but rather for the ripeness and roundness which are readily and immediately identifiable. Though notably different in aroma, it resembles in these aspects some of the highly regarded varieties of the northern Rhône: Viognier, Marsanne,and Roussanne, and it shares with the first of these the peach and apricot flavors. The grape ripens significantly earlier than either Greco or Fiano, an obviously advantage for avoiding problems of dilution and rot caused by early fall rains and humidity. Preliminary experiments also indicate that Pallagrello wines can be fermented and aged in oak without any significant loss of character, yet another quality which - along with the highly pleasurable personality of the first wines of the grape to be released - suggest that, in its home territory of Caiazzo, Castel Campagnano, and Castel di Sasso, it will be playing an increasing significant role in the very near future.
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PALLAGRELLO NERO
The same confusion which long existed between Pallagrello Bianco and Coda di Volpe Bianco also characterized Pallagrello Nero, the red grape version of the variety, for generations identified as "Coda di Volpe Nero". Just to supply some additional confusion, G. Froio, writing in 1875, describes as similar both a Coda di Volpe Nero widely planted in the province of Avellino and a "Pallagrella Nera" cultivated in the province of Caserta, the current home base of Pallagrello production in general, while, to further muddy the waters, M. Fera, in a monograph of 1881, speaks of a "Piedilungo" cultivated in Calabria, to the south of Campania, whose physical characteristics seem to match remarkably well those of Pallagrello Nero. Piedilungo, in Italian, simply means "long foot", and the long and cylindrical bunch of Pallagrello, without any of the wings at the "shoulders" which characterize many other varieties, could easily seem to resemble a slim and elongated foot.
The history of the grape, instead, something probably of more interest to wine drinkers than the kind of technical descriptions of bud, shoot, leaf, bunch, and berry which characterizes the science known as ampelography, is not significantly different than that of the white-grape version of Pallagrello. Both were noted in the "Fan Vineyard" of the Bourbon king of Naples and Sicily, Ferdinand IV and Gianfrancesco Trutta, the eighteenth century historian of the province of Caserta, after remarking upon the small, pellet-like berries of the grape, wrote that its lovely ruby color and sweetness of flavor made it a particularly appreciated wine.
Like its white-grape counterpart, Pallagrello Nero is principally cultivated in a somewhat limited area of the province of Caserta in the Campania region of Italy's south: the townships of Alife, Alvignano, Caiazzo, and Castel Campagnano and areas contiguous to these townships. It was once present as well somewhat further to the north in a part of Caserta known as Conca della Campagna where it supplied the most important grape in the blend of a wine known as "rosso di Conca". This and other Pallagrello Nero-based wines were already known for their aging ability, to the point that they were not only described as the best wines of the province but also capable of lasting well over a decade. This is undoubtedly the tradition which Luigi Veronelli had the opportunity to personally verify in the 1960's when he described the wine as "ample and pleasurable", "structured and solid", a "lovely red in color". Words echoed by such local writers as Zamboni and Rivieccio ("full-bodied, soft, elegant with aging") and Montanari who, in noting the attractive light tannins of the wine, named it, along with Falerno, the best red wine of this part of Campania.
Pallagrello Nero shares with its cousin Pallagrello Bianco a bunch and berry rather low in weight, a favorable factor for quality which is undoubtedly responsible for the ruby color of the wine. Though experimentation with the variety is only in the initial stages, the alcohol level is good, the acidity balance, and the flavors full to medium-bodied, not as tannic and intense as Casavecchia and probably less suitable for very lengthy aging, but certainly a wine which can be cellared and will improve with time. The aromas are notably peppery in character, somewhat like the red wines of the Rhône, the texture smooth and velvety. In short, the wine is something new in the overall Italian panorama and, like others from Italy's south, is part of an important process which is bringing a different range of sensations to wine-loving consumers in search of something new and interesting, not simply the tried and true.
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PIEDIROSSO
Once a supporting actor in danger of becoming a bit player, Piedirosso, formally one of the southern Italian region of Campania's major red grape varieties, has now inverted the trend and appears more likely to become a supporting actor with some pretensions to limelight-hogging. The grape is almost entirely utilized in one sole region of Italy, that whose capital is Naples, and takes its name - which can literally be translated as "red feet" - from the characteristically russet color of its stems when full ripeness has been achieved; the alternative name, used in its dialect form of Per' e Palummo or "dove's foot", expresses the same concept, as the feet of a dove or pigeon appear notably reddish beneath the grayish or whitish plumage of the bird. The variety underwent a major expansion of the vineyard surface devoted to its use towards the end of the nineteenth century when, as a result of the ravages of the phylloxera vine louse, a large part of Campania's vineyards - just like those of the rest of Italy - were forced to be replanted. Piedirosso was frequently selected to replace what were considered minor varieties at that time, and its total vineyard surface, at the height of its maximum fame and glory, was the not inconsiderable figure of ten thousand hectares (close to twenty five thousand acres). G. Gasparrini, writing in 1844, even expressed the opinion, which few would probably share today, that the grape's wines were not only equal to those made from Aglianico in terms of elegance, but superior in terms of power.
The post-war period, especially the two decades from 1970 to 1990, were significantly less kind to Piedirosso, and by the end of the 1980's total vineyard surface had been halved to five thousand hectares (some twelve thousand acres). But the 1990's have seen a revival in interest in and enthusiasm for the variety, and a more significant future in the initial part of the third millennium seems entirely assured.
Piedirosso has a notable predilection for volcanic soils, which abound in Campania, and has always been most intensively cultivated near Naples, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, on the island of Ischia, and in the volcanic plain near the city known as the Phlegrean fields where, according to the legends of the ancient world, Ulysses was first captured by, then blinded and escaped from, the Cyclopean giant known as Polyphemus, a famous episode in Homer's Odyssey. Blasts of sulfureous air escaping from the sub-soil still characterize this outer suburb of Naples and testify that the latent volcanic activity of the entire metropolitan area has, regrettably, by no means entirely subsided.
Other part of Campania where Piedirosso is still widely cultivated are the Sorrento peninsula and the Amalfi coast to the south of Naples, the province of Caserta to the north of the city, and certain parts of the inland province of Benevento bordering on Caserta. In the past, the variety's wines were considered, at best, of medium weight and thought to be most suitable for young drinking where its qualities of freshness and fruitiness, its vibrant ruby color, and, in particular, its characteristic aromas of violets, of minerals, of mushrooms and truffles, and of underbrush and damp earth, exerted their maximum charm. In soils where volcanic ash is a predominant element, as in the vineyards of Mount Vesuvius, the mineral character is even more perceptible and gave an unmistakably tangy, almost salty, savor to the wines. What is beginning to change, however, is the weight and body of many of the new wines: though Piedirosso is unlikely to ever achieve the extraordinary intensity and sheer majesty of the finest Aglianico, its wines have begun to put on significant flesh and fullness and have become, if not wines meant for extended cellaring, capable of medium aging, a good five or six years. Whether further improvements in vineyard and cellar techniques will lead to a further leap in quality levels and in the general opinion of the wines remains to be seen, but on its major stalking grounds of Mount Vesuvius and in other choice spots, Piedirosso may still have important surprises to spring on consumers used to a lighter, fresher style in the wines.
In addition to its use on its own, important in such appellations as Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio, Campi Flegrei, and Penisola Sorrentina (especially the sub-zones of Gragnano and Lettere in this last case), Piedirosso seems destined play a very large role, in conjunction with Aglianico, in some of the most prestigious wines of all of Italy's south. In this blend, normally 75-80% Aglianico and 20-25% Piedirosso, the former supplies the power, the concentration, the density, and the length while the latter, with its unusual aromas and freshness, adds complexity, perfume, and drinkability to wines which otherwise might be too intense, potent, and monolithic. The production zone of the Falerno del Massico appellation is the area where the blend was first pioneered in recent years and has given wines which, in a short space of time, have achieved mythical status on world markets. Falernum, produced in the same area two thousand years ago, was considered the greatest wine of the ancient world, able to stand up to one hundred years of aging in amphorae, and it is intriguing to speculate that the new wines simply revive those served by Trimalchio in Petronius' Satirycon. What is incontrovertible is that the house of Mastroberardino, Campania's most venerable firm, when it begun to experiment the blend for a new top of the line red wine, chose to utilize the now canonical 80-20 Aglianico and Piedirosso blend, giving it the Plinian title of "Naturalis Historiae" and reminding us that Piedirosso and its vineyards are in some of the oldest and most renowned viticultural areas of the world, ones with well over two millennia of uninterrupted history.
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