Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
various IGT blends such as Rubicone and Terre
degli Osci. Unlike Malvasia Bianca di Candia,
this aromatic
Malvasia
is a high-quality grape:
the wines are never as intense as a moscato
bianco or gewürztraminer, but have lovely spicy
and tropical fruit aromas, though dry versions
are never particularly fl eshy. Conversely, they
are fresher and livelier than many wines made
with aromatic grapes. However, in my experi-
ence, these wines often lack suffi cient palate
complexity for the variety to be considered truly
noble. Probably best are the honeyed, sweet
wines.
its wine (called malvasia delle Lipari, differenti-
ating it from Malvasia di Lipari, which is the
grape) is largely the doing of Carlo Hauner, a
Milanese painter and designer who fi rst visited
the Lipari (or Eolian) islands, off the northern
coast of Sicily, in 1963. He turned them into his
second home and was soon making the local
wine. The results of his vinous efforts took Italy
by storm in the 1980s and led to renewed inter-
est in the wine (a good thing) and a sudden
increase in the production of malvasia delle
Lipari labels and very questionable wines (not a
good thing). Allowing the wine to be bottled
outside the islands (in Sicily, for instance) was
probably not a good idea, though it probably
couldn't be helped, given the logistical diffi cul-
ties posed by the small islands. Also, while mal-
vasia delle Lipari is made with the almost
eponymous variety, many modern versions are
disappointing. According to Francesco Fenech,
one of the best producers of this wine, part of
the problem is that on the wave of the wine's
great popularity, increased demand for nursery
material (of which there was little, as Malvasia
di Lipari had been until then a completely for-
gotten variety) led to a great deal of, for exam-
ple, Malvasia di Candia Aromatica fi nding its
way onto the islands and the southern main-
land. Clearly, everyone wanted a piece of the
action, and the islands, amazingly beautiful but
small, only had limited plantings of original old
vines, and fi nite production capacities. Malva-
sia di Candia Aromatica is a fi ne variety, but
less adapted to the island microclimate than
the original Malvasia di Lipari; and anyway, in
my view, the latter is the superior of the two,
relative to fi ne-winemaking potential. Sweet
malvasia delle Lipari wines especially offer
greater depth and complexity.
In fact, the two varieties don't look anything
alike. Malvasia di Lipari is immediately recog-
nizable due to its very scrawny, elongated, cylin-
drical (rarely cylindrical-conical) grape bunch
and small, round berries with thin skins. By
contrast, Malvasia di Candia Aromatica has a
large, pyramidal bunch with a large wing or
two and medium-small, round berries with
wines to try:
Barattieri di San Pietro*** (Vin
Santo Albarola Val di Nure, one of Italy's top
fi ve or six sweet wines), La Stoppa*** (Passito
Vigna del Volta, a truly great dessert wine,
though it can contain up to 20 percent Moscato
Bianco), Luretta*** (Boccadirosa), and Vigneto
delle Terre Rosse** (Malvasia di Candia Adri-
ana Vallania). Pizzarotti* makes a sweet spar-
kling monovarietal version. Monte delle
Vigne** (Callas) makes an excellent monovari-
etal dry version. For comparison's sake, readers
may want to try the dry wine (Femina) and
sweet wine (Malvazia Sweet, though the label
reads Malvasia di Candia Aromatica) made
with this variety by Nikos Doloufakis at his
Doloufakis winery in Dafnes, Crete. The
Femina is cask-aged (which rarely happens in
Italy) and has delicate herbal aromas and fl a-
vors, while the Malvazia is redolent with orange
and fl oral scents and fl avors; of the two, the
sweet is most similar to the Italian versions.
Malvasia di Lipari
where it's found:
Sicily.
national registry
code number:
135 (also listed at 98 as Greco
Bianco and at 136 as Malvasia di Sardegna).
color:
white.
Wine from the Malvasia di Lipari variety
appears to have been produced since at least the
fi rst century
B
.
C
.
E
.; it was well described by
Cupani already in 1696 (he called it
malvagia
)
.
The modern notoriety of Malvasia di Lipari and
