Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
ever a very pleasant, delicious, light-bodied
wine. Today most of the Moscato Nero di Acqui
still present in old vineyards gets blended into
Brachetto wines.
Elsewhere in the world, it is unlikely there
are any Moscato Nero di Acqui vines to be
found, unless some Piedmontese immigrants
of centuries past decided to pack some away
amid their suitcases. The black muscat wines
made everywhere are usually made with the
Muscat of Hamburg grape, though many times
producers never bother to specify this, limiting
themselves at a generic “Black Muscat”
designation.
credence to a possible Dalmatian origin of the
grape (Maletic, Sefc, Steinkellner, Karoglan
Kontic, and Pejic 1999).
However, it's not so simple (and this being
Italy, I'm not surprised): in the landmark 2001
study of the
Moscato
family by Crespan and
Milani, three different Moscato Rosa accessions
were analyzed (one originally from the country-
side near Belgrade but growing in an Italian
grapevine collection, one from Breganze in
Veneto, and one from Trentino) and found to be
completely distinct varieties. Actually, the Bel-
grade sample was a color mutation of Moscato
Bianco, while the Breganze Moscato Rosa and
the Trentino Moscato Rosa were truly different
varieties. The Trentino Moscato Rosa is consid-
ered traditional to Italy and to be the true
Moscato Rosa , and the variety's offi cial name
in the National Registry is, simply enough,
Moscato Rosa (though this engenders confu-
sion with the similarly named but rarer pink
mutation of Moscato Bianco) and not Moscato
Rosa del Trentino, a name that for accuracy's
sake should therefore not be used. The
Breganze Moscato Rosa is yet another Italian
cultivar practically nothing is known about,
more indication that limiting Italy's native
grape count to less than four hundred varieties
is a gross underestimation. In the past,
researchers such as Calò, Scienza, and Costa-
curta (2001) believed Moscato Rosa should not
be considered a
Moscato
at all; in those earlier
times, when microsatellite testing was not quite
as commonplace as it is today, the variety's high
geraniol content (an aromatic molecule more
commonly found in members of the
Malvasia
s)
was considered proof of a lack of “Moscato-
ness.” However, in their study, Crespan and
Milan carried out parentage analysis showing
that Moscato Rosa has a parent-offspring rela-
tionship with Moscato Bianco, which therefore
means that it is also either a half-sibling or
grandchild of four other Moscato varieties:
Moscato di Scanzo, Moscato Giallo, Moscato di
Alessandria, and Moscato Violetto (very rare in
Italy and perhaps better known elsewhere as
Muscat Rouge de Madère).
wines to try:
Daglio** (Negher, a
rosato
)
makes probably the only currently commer-
cially available and monovarietal Moscato Nero
di Acqui wine in Italy. Marco Gaudio at Bricco
Mondalino owns a small vineyard of Moscato
Nero di Acqui and the La Capetta estate is also
replanting the cultivar. These producers have
worked closely with Anna Schneider and Ste-
fano Raimondi to provide virus-free grapevine
material.
Moscato Rosa
where it's found:
Alto Adige, Trentino, FVG.
national registry code number:
156.
color:
red.
This variety's name (Rosenmuskateller in
Alto Adige) is not due to its berries or wine
being pink (in fact the wine is a very deep crim-
son) but because the wine smells intensely of
red roses. Moscato Rosa might have been fi rst
brought to Italy in the nineteenth century from
Dalmatia as a wedding gift for a local young
lady, though there have been many farfetched
theories in this respect (even Peruvian and Ori-
ental origins have been postulated). However,
in a study comparing genotypes obtained from
Croatian cultivars with those obtained from
grapevines of neighboring regions, the Croa-
tian grape Muˇkat Ruža Pore ˇki (previously
called Muˇkat Ruža Omiˇki) was proved identi-
cal to Rosenmuskateller, and this fi nding lends
