Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Zibibbo (Moscato di Alessandria)
Cataratto Bianco) and Malvasia del Lazio
(Moscato di Alessandria × Schiava Grossa) are
extremely important varieties. The less abun-
dant Moscatello Selvatico is also the result of a
Moscato di Alessandria × Bombino Bianco nat-
ural crossing. Therefore, despite its name
recalling Egypt and the city of Alexandria, the
fact that the name Zibibbo is antecedent to that
of Moscato di Alessandria (or Muscat of Alex-
andria) and that so many of these progeny also
originated in Italy makes it likely that Moscato
di Alessandria is a native Italian grape (or per-
haps Greek). Current knowledge dictates that it
is identical to several Spanish
Moscato
s—
Moscatel de Jerez, Moscatel de Malaga, and
Moscato Gordo Blanco—as well as to the Portu-
guese cultivar Moscatel de Setúbal (Lopes, Sefc,
Eiras-Dias, Steinkellner, Laimer, and da
Câmara Machado 1999) and to Greece's Mos-
chato Alexandreias (Lefort, Anzidei, Roube-
lakis-Angelakis, and Vendramin 2000). The
variety is known by many other synonyms in
the Mediterranean countries where it grows:
Angliko, Apostoliatiko, Limnos, and Moschato
Limnos in Greece; Iskendiriye Misketi in Tur-
key; Moscatel Graúdo in Portugal; and an
almost endless list in Spain, including, besides
those already mentioned, Gordo, Moscatel de
Chipiona, Moscatel de Grano Garda, and Sala-
manca. It is also called Lexia in Australia
(derived from the word Alexandria); Muscat
Berkain, Muscat El Adda, and Muscat de Fan-
douk in Algeria; and Muscat Raf-Raf in Tuni-
sia. Last but not least, there are red-berried
mutations of Moscato di Alessandria: Black
Muscat of Alexandria (grown in the United
Kingdom), Red Hanepoot (South Africa), and
Flame Muscat (California). There are no offi -
cial clones available of Moscato di Alessandria,
so descriptions depend on the biotype you look
at. Antonio Rallo of the Donnafugata estate in
Sicily has told me that there still exist very rare
plantings on the island of many different
smaller-berried variants that are thought to be
even better for fi ne wine production.
The vast majority of Moscato di Alessandria
grapevines are characterized by large, compact
where it's found:
Sicily.
national registry
code number:
343.
color:
white.
Moscato di Alessandria is listed in the
National Registry as Zibibbo, a name derived
from the Arabic
zabīb,
which probably refers to
a dried grape or raisin, though not all experts
are in agreement. Zibibbo is the oldest name for
this variety: a
zibibo
wine was documented in
Sicily by Pietro Andrea Mattioli in 1563. By con-
trast, the name Moscato di Alessandria fi rst
appears only in 1713, in the catalogue of the Cer-
tosini Frères in Paris. According to Schneider,
Mainardi, and Raimondi (2011), the Abbot
Rozier provided a rather complete description of
the variety in his 1793
Dictionnaire d'agriculture.
Interestingly, Moscato di Alessandria or Zibibbo
was already known by several synonyms at that
time. The name Moscato di Alessandria is rea-
sonable, because the variety was believed to
originate in the Egyptian city of Alexandria,
though it is far more likely that it was born
either in southern Italy (Sicily, most likely) or
Greece. Cipriani, Spadotto, Jurman, Di Gaspero,
Crespan, Meneghetti, et al. (2010) have shown
that Moscato di Alessandria was born of a natu-
ral crossing between Moscato Bianco and Axina
de Tres Bias. The latter is also known as Trifera,
Uva di Tre Volte, and Tre Volte l'Anno, names
which refer to its ability to fl ower and crop three
times a year. Dismayingly, a 2011 study by
Myles, Boyko, Owens, Brown, Grassi, Aradhya,
et al. came to a different conclusion than Cipri-
ani's work, saying that Moscato di Alessandria is
instead a progeny of Moscato Bianco and Black
Morocco. The likely answer to the riddle is that
Black Morocco and Axina de Tres Bias are syn-
onymous, though I do not believe there is any
hard genetic evidence detailing this yet (though
the French name Marocain Noir for Axina de
Tres Bias is very encouraging).
In any case, Moscato di Alessandria, along
with Moscato Bianco, with which it shares a
parent-offspring relationship, is the progenitor
of at least fourteen different cultivars, some of
which, like Grillo (Moscato di Alessandria ×
