Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Negrara Trentina
only has three lobes), and its bunch is cylindri-
cal, very compact, with one or two wings at
most (Negrara Veronese's bunch is larger,
pyramidal, and has two or three wings); other-
wise the two Negrara s are very similar. Negrara
Trentina is very sensitive to peronospora, less
so to oidium; the compact bunch makes it
prone to botrytis.
where it's found: Trentino, Alto Adige, Ve-
neto. national registry code number: 161.
color: red.
Over the years, researchers, winemakers,
and wine cellar personnel I have interviewed at
the Istituto Agrario San Michel dell'Adige (now
renamed Fondazione Edmund Mach) and else-
where have always seemed convinced that
Negrara Trentina is the original Negrara. It is
generally considered a high-quality cultivar tra-
ditionally used to make the best wine of the
house by the local farmers. By the end of the
1800s, more than eighty-fi ve thousand hectoli-
ters of Negrara wine were being made annually
in Trentino, and Negrara Trentina was the most
commonly used grape to blend into Schiava
wines (though I'm not sure there is any way of
knowing how much of that Negrara wine was
Negrara Trentina and how much Negronza or
other Negrara varieties).
What appears to have hurt Negrara Trentina
the most was the advent of phylloxera, which
proved even more disastrous than usual; and
grafting of Negrara Trentina onto American
rootstocks was not as helpful as with most
other varieties, for it greatly increased the vari-
ety's vegetative vigor while diminishing wine
quality. The lack of rootstock-grapevine synergy
was such that the grapes were unable to ripen
fully, and resulting wines were green and thin,
an unfortunate turn of events reminiscent of
the fate befalling Malbec in Cahors, another
variety that had great diffi culty adapting to new
rootstocks. In time, Negrara Trentina managed
to adapt somewhat and today the problem is not
as dire.
Also called Doleara, Dovenzana, and
Zoveana (and there were many more routinely
used synonyms depending on where in Tren-
tino the variety grew), Negrara Trentina appar-
ently has a parent-offspring relationship with
Enantio (Grando, Stefanini, Zambanini, and
Vouillamoz 2006). It is easy to spot in the vine-
yards, since its leaf is pentagonal and has fi ve
lobes (while Negrara Veronese, for example,
Which Wines to Choose and Why
Negrara Trentina is still grown all over Tren-
tino, albeit in small quantities, though it is less
abundant than Negrara Veronese. It's usually
included as a blending grape in the Valle dei
Laghi wines, but some monovarietal IGT wines
are made. The wine is medium-dark red, with
grapey, herbal, and red currant aromas. It
tastes bright and fresh, with delicate sour red
fruit and herbal, underbrush notes. It's a very
good, light- to medium-bodied, low-alcohol,
high-acid, everyday table wine ideal for uncom-
plicated drinking and early consumption, guar-
anteed to leave your taste buds tingling and
your mouth fresh. There's a hint of herbal bit-
terness at the back that contributes to leaving
the palate feeling clean and lively.
wines to try: Pravis** (a great wine for Sun-
day brunch or BBQs).
Negrara Veronese
where it's found: Trentino, Alto Adige, Ve-
neto. national registry code number: 161.
color: red.
Sometimes also called Terodola, Negrara
Veronese is an ancient variety fi rst described by
Pollini in 1824 that has recently been shown to
have close genetic ties with another rare Veneto
variety called Gruaja (Salmaso, Dalla Valle, and
Lucchin 2008). Though in Trentino they like to
say that Negrara Trentina is the better of the
two varieties, the truth is, in Veneto they are
pretty happy with their version of Negrara. In
fact, along with Oseleta, it is one of the lesser-
known native varieties that has made a resur-
gence in the last twenty years, and numerous
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