Grape Groups and Families - Native Wine Grapes of Italy - page 89

grounds: color of the berries, size of the cluster,
shape of the leaf, fl owering dates, harvest dates,
and degree of aromatic expression. This last
characteristic was once believed to be a distin-
guishing feature of members of the group: vari-
eties were classifi ed into the family or not based
on the presence or absence of the moscato
aroma. However, this was incorrect, for the
muscat aroma alone is not enough to qualify a
variety as being a Moscato. Mutations allow the
muscat quality to be expressed by neutral varie-
ties such as Chardonnay and Chasselas: such
biotypes, erroneously called “clones,” are called
musqué. The molecules responsible for the aro-
matic quality of these grapes are mainly ter-
penic in nature (linalool, geraniol, and nerol)
and are responsible for the aromas and fl avors
of apple or pineapple, honey, sage, and rose that
are typical of the group. In Moscato wines,
linalool plays the biggest role, but importantly,
it lacks staying power (concentrations drop con-
siderably after roughly three years in the bot-
tle), and this is one of the reasons why most of
these wines are best consumed fairly young.
Emanuelli's research team in 2010 went
searching for the candidate gene (VvDXS) that
expresses the muscat aroma. Their control
population included forty-eight neutral varie-
ties and ninety-fi ve aromatic ones, seventy-two
of which expressed a Moscato aroma
(Emanuelli, Battilana, Costantini, Le Cunff,
Boursiquot, and This 2010). Relative to the
muscat aroma and f lavor, DXS-1 (that is,
1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase 1) was
identifi ed as a strong candidate gene for muscat
fl avor determination, as DXS is an important
regulatory enzyme of the mevalonate-inde-
pendent pathway involved in terpenoid biosyn-
thesis. Most likely, what helped propel the culti-
vation of varieties expressing the muscat aroma
is that human beings consider it a positive, lik-
able trait. This has also led to the creation of not
just myriad other Moscato varieties but also the
musqué clones of Chardonnay and Chasselas.
The fi rst in Italy to shed light on the subject
of Moscato parentage and family ties were Cres-
pan and Milani (2001) and Costacurta, Cres-

pan, Milani, Carraro, Flamini, Aggio, et al.
(2003); in particular, the latter team stated all
Moscato varieties developed, either directly or
indirectly, from one of three main Moscato s,
each in a distinct center of origin: Moscato
Bianco (Greece), Moscato Giallo (Middle East),
and Moscato di Alessandria (Egypt). A more
recent study has further clarifi ed the situation,
demonstrating that in fact the main Moscato
variety is Moscato Bianco, from which practi-
cally all other Moscato s developed, including
both Moscato Giallo and Moscato di Alessan-
dria (Cipriani, Spadotto, Jurman, Di Gaspero,
Crespan, Meneghetti, et al. 2010). In fact,
Moscato di Alessandria is the result of a natural
crossing between Moscato Bianco and Axina de
Tres Bias, an ancient table grape grown in Sar-
dinia and the Greek isles. At the present state of
knowledge, there are at least fourteen progenies
of Moscato di Alessandria and Moscato Bianco.
To give just a few branches of this family
tree, Moscato Giallo, Moscato di Scanzo,
Moscato Rosa, and Moscato Violetto (not grown
in Italy) all are direct descendants of Moscato
Bianco, while its indirect descendants include
(all of them also directly related to Moscato
d'Alessandria) Moscato d'Amburgo, Moscatello
Selvatico, and Moscatel Amarillo (not grown in
Italy). It is unclear where Moscato di Terracina,
a white-berried Moscato typical of the coast
south of Rome fi ts in all of this; once thought to
be related to Moscato Bianco (even though it
has a greater morphological resemblance to
Moscato d'Alessandria), it appears to be geneti-
cally distinct from both of these.
Some Moscato cultivars are among the old-
est varieties known: Moscato Bianco was likely
known in ancient Rome, if not earlier. The
famous Uve Apiane of antiquity described by
Pliny and other Roman men of letters are
believed to have been for the most part Mosca-
to s (Bianco, in particular) and not Fiano, as
once believed. Apparently, the Uve Apiane were
the same as the high-quality Anathelicon Mos-
chaton described by the Greeks. Interestingly,
though the word moscato is generally believed
to descend from the Latin muscus or muscatum,