Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Albugnano, Berzano, Castelnuovo Don Bosco,
Moncucco, Passerano, Marmorito, and Pino
d'Asti, and is sporadically present in the prov-
inces of Asti, Alessandria, and Turin. It ripens
earlier and is more disease resistant than Mal-
vasia di Schierano, but it is also less acid and
tends to overripen easily. From an aromatic per-
spective, while Malvasia di Schierano expresses
aromas of both geraniol and linalool, Malvasia
Nera Lunga expresses mainly geraniol. Inter-
estingly, when high yields are produced, the
berries are only lightly colored. Some local pro-
ducers have told me that a blend of Malvasia di
Schierano and Malvasia Nera Lunga produces
the best wines, but they
would
say that, given
that most own vineyards where the two culti-
vars are interplanted. That said, most Malvasia
di Castelnuovo Don Bosco today probably is a
blend of the two. However, when pressed, pro-
ducers will admit that, wine-wise, Malvasia di
Schierano is the superior of the two varieties,
but as it's more delicate, later ripening, and less
productive, use of Malvasia Nera Lunga was
almost inevitable.
after years spent trying. The few I have been
able to try, courtesy of local farmers, were char-
acterized by ruby-red and salmon-pink hues,
with lively acidity and medium body, and faint
strawberry aromas and fl avors. But I'm not
comfortable with the identity of the grapes used
to make the wines I was given to try. It seems
likely some of the wines may have been made,
in perfectly good faith, with the locally more
abundant Moscato Rosa; then again, a few of
the wines didn't strike me as being particularly
aromatic (which Moscato Rosa certainly is),
and if yields weren't the issue, then maybe I did
get to try a true Malvasier wine after all.
wines to try:
To date there are no monovarie-
tal wines in Italy made with this variety—that I
know of.
THE MOSCATO FAMILY
The
Moscato
s (Muscat, in English) comprise
one of the largest groups of grapes, and include
a rainbow of fragrant and colorful varieties,
from yellow to pink to red to almost black.
Though there are some Moscato-named varie-
ties that are unrelated to the others, the major-
ity are; hence I have defi ned them a family,
instead of a group. The list includes all the best-
known ones: Moscato Bianco, Moscato di Ales-
sandria (in Italy, its offi cial name is Zibibbo,
but that name is used almost exclusively in Sic-
ily), Moscato Giallo, Moscato Rosso di Madera
(also known as Moscato Violetto in Italy and
Muscat Rouge de Madère in France), Moscato
Giallo, Moscato Rosa, Moscatello Selvatico, and
Moscato d'Amburgo (or Muscat of Hamburg).
Actually, for the longest time experts believed
that apart from the name and a muscaty aroma
and fl avor,
Moscato
s shared little else in com-
mon. Today we know this is not true: unlike the
Malvasia
group, which is plagued by synonyms
and homonyms, the
Moscato
s are actually
related (to a degree, at least) and are closer to
being a family than any other large group of
Italian wine grapes. True,
Moscato
grapes dif-
fer, at times considerably, on ampelographic
wines to try:
To date, there are no monovarietal
wines, or at least none that are admittedly so.
Malvasia
where it's found:
Alto Adige, Trentino.
na -
tional registry code number:
128.
color:
red.
The rarest Italian Malvasia, also called Mal-
vasier or, more rarely, Malvasia Nera di Bolzano
(there's yet another Italian
Malvasia Nera
grape ! ), grown only in Trentino and Alto Adige,
Malvasia is hard to fi nd, as there are only spo-
radic vines growing in old vineyards. At least,
some light has been recently shed on the vari-
ety by Cipriani, Spadotto, Jurman, Di Gaspero,
Crespan, Meneghetti, et al. (2010) who have
documented that it is a cross of Perera and
Schiava Gentile, two varieties typical of the
northern parts of Italy. Possibly even harder
than fi nding Malvasia grapevines is trying to
locate wines made with it—and I should know,
