Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
not an offi cially recognized name and is not
included as such in the National Registry. In
keeping with the notion that these two are sepa-
rate varieties, the offi cial clones of these two
black
Malvasia
s are also different, and the two
varieties remain listed separately at numbers
140 and 141. As we shall see, this may not be a
bad idea, in view of the arguments raised by
what “genetic identity” really amounts to, at
least at the present state of knowledge and tech-
nology available for genetic testing (see chapter
1). Crespan, Calò, Giannetto, Sparacio, Storchi,
and Costacurta (2008) also established that
Malvasia Nera Brindisi/Lecce is the result of a
natural crossing between Malvasia Bianca
Lunga and Negro Amaro. With the current
drive to prove all
Malvasia Nera
s identical, it
may well be that someone will soon enlighten
all us Neanderthals that Malvasia Nera di Basil-
icata is also identical to the other two
Malvasia
Nera
s, but genetic testing of the Basilicata vari-
ety thus far has not yet shown this to be the
case, so the jury's out. Amid the never-ending
confusion that is the
Malvasia Nera
s, recent
research has shown that at least some of the so-
called “Malvasia Nera” grown in Tuscany is in
reality the well-known Spanish variety Tempra-
nillo (Storchi, Armanni, Crespan, Frare, De
Lorenzis, D'Onofrio, and Scalabrelli 2009;
based on molecular studies fi rst performed by
D'Onofrio, De Lorenzis, Natali, and Scalabrelli
2008). Storchi's group focused on sixteen black
Malvasia
s of Tuscany (culled from different
vineyards in the provinces of Grosseto, Pisa,
and Arezzo, some with one-hundred-year-old
vines), comparing accessions with four regis-
tered clones, at eleven microsatellite markers.
Comparisons with databases confi rmed that
most of the Tuscan accessions, including regis-
tered clones, shared the molecular profi le of
Tempranillo. These results suggest that Tem-
pranillo is in fact cultivated in Tuscany (where
its presence has been documented since the
nineteenth century) in vineyards, but most
often under the erroneous alias of Malvasia
Nera. Also, Giancarlo Scalabrelli of the Univer-
sity of Pisa has written as recently as 2012 that
THE DARK-BERRIED MALVASIAS
For me, and not just me, the
Malvasia Nera
vari-
eties represent a conundrum. Of the numerous
dark-berried
Malvasia
grapes in Italy, four share
the “Malvasia Nera-Something” moniker: Mal-
vasia Nera di Lecce, Malvasia Nera di Brindisi,
Malvasia Nera Lunga, and Malvasia Nera di
Basilicata (though the last of these is particu-
larly rare). The fi rst two, both typical of Puglia,
have been the source of much confusion and
myriad diatribes. Ampelographically, Malvasia
Nera di Lecce and Malvasia Nera di Brindisi dif-
fer from each other: the Brindisi variety has
smaller bunches and berries, though the
bunches of both tend to become more loosely-
packed with age. Furthermore, Malvasia Nera
di Lecce ripens much later in the year (usually
in the latter part of September and fi rst ten
days of October), compared to the Brindisi vari-
ety, which is early-ripening (usually in the fi rst
half of September). Last but not least, Malvasia
Nera di Brindisi tends to produce wines that are
lightly aromatic, while Malvasia Nera di Lecce,
a neutral grape, does not. Both are excellent
table grapes as well as wine grapes.
Despite these obvious differences, recent
genetic studies seem to confi rm the identity
between the two. Coletta, Crespan, Costacurta,
Caputo, Taurisano, Meneghetti, and Antonacci
(2006) were the fi rst to conclude that these two
Malvasia
s were the same cultivar, since they
found them to have the same SSR profi le. Stud-
ies analyzing more SSR markers, performed
more recently on new samples from other vine-
yards in Puglia confi rmed the previously pub-
lished results (Gasparro, Caputo, Brini, Coletta,
Crespan, Lapenna, and Antonacci 2008).
Meneghetti, Bavaresco, Calò, and Costacurta
(2013) also obtained similar results when they
analyzed thirteen accessions of Malvasia Nera
from Brindisi and thirteen accessions of Malva-
sia Nera from Lecce, fi nding that all the acces-
sions showed the same SSR profi le. Therefore,
most researchers today view these two
Malva-
sia
s as a single variety, naming it in the process
Malvasia Nera di Brindisi/Lecce, though this is
