Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
countryside of Caserta Province. Nero was even
grown in nearby regions such as Molise and
Calabria. But today its habitat is restricted to
the same Caserta countryside that's home
to Pallagrello Bianco. A close relationship to
Casavecchia has been postulated (Masi, Vi-
gnani, Di Giovannantonio, Mancuso, and
Boselli 2001), which doesn't seem far-fetched,
given that the two varieties have lived in the
same fi nite area of Campania for centuries—
specifi cally, the small towns of Alife, Alvig-
nano, Caiazzo, and Castel Campagnano. The
best wines exhibit aromas and fl avors of red
cherry, black currant, tobacco, black pepper,
and blackberry jam typical of the variety; the
wines are usually characterized by soft tannins
and low levels of acidity. Some excellent IGT
Terre del Volturno wines are made with Palla-
grello Nero.
a white variety often called Rabosina Bianco
locally, and the two
Raboso
s. Studies also sug-
gest a parent-offspring relationship between
Raboso Piave and Fogarina (Myles, Boyko,
Owens, Brown, Grassi, Aradhya, et al. 2011),
and that Raboso Piave is one of the two parents
(the other is Moscato d'Amburgo) of Manzoni
Moscato. Interestingly, Friularo is a synonym of
Raboso Piave, while Raboso Friularo, is actually
synonymous with Raboso Veronese (Salmaso,
Dalla Valle, and Lucchin 2008). This can be
the source of much confusion since everyone,
so-called experts and real ones included, talks
and writes about a generic Friularo or Friularo
Raboso variety as synonymous with Raboso
Piave only. Finally, the laboratory crossing of
Merlot and Raboso Veronese has produced a
new variety called Fertilia.
Though the two
Raboso
varieties look alike,
they show clear differences in morphology and
viticultural behavior. Furthermore, they can be
easily separated on the basis of isoenzyme anal-
ysis and by anthocyanin profi le. The latter was
analyzed in detail by De Rosso in his brilliant
doctoral thesis presented at the university of
Padua in 2010. According to these results,
though both
Raboso
s are characterized by high
anthocyanin levels in general (comparable to
those of Cabernet Sauvignon and Barbera, two
of the world's most darkly pigmented grapes),
Raboso Piave is characterized by a larger con-
centration of peonin-3-monoglucoside and of
malvin-3-monoglucoside (confi rming previous
results published by Mattivi, Cova, Dalla Serra,
and Soligo in 2004), while Raboso Veronese is
characterized by a higher level of cyanin-3-
monoglucoside and delphin-3-monoglucoside,
and a lower concentration of peonin-3-monoglu-
coside. And though both
Raboso
varieties
present very low levels of acylated anthocy-
anins, Raboso Veronese has a slightly higher
concentration of these than Raboso Piave.
wines to try:
Vestini Campagnano*** and
Terre del Principe*** (Ambruco) are stellar,
though there are now many other fi ne produc-
ers, such as Fattoria Selvanova**.
THE RABOSO FAMILY
The
Raboso
s are distinct varieties but Raboso
Piave and Raboso Veronese are closely related
in that the latter is an offspring of a cross
between Raboso Piave and Marzemina Bianca.
Hence, it is correct to consider the
Raboso
s as a
family of grapes, albeit a small one. The oldest
of the two is therefore not surprisingly, Raboso
Piave, fi rst mentioned in the literature in 1679,
while Raboso Veronese only begins to be
described in the nineteenth century. The name
Raboso is believed to stem from a similarly
named tributary of the Piave River, which fl ows
through the wine's production area, but others
believe it is a derivation of
rabbioso
(angry, in
Italian), a reference to the incredibly harsh tan-
nins and high acidity of wines made with these
varieties.
Crespan, Cancellier, Chies, Giannetto,
Meneghetti, and Costacurta (2009) showed
that there is no relationship between Grapariol,
Raboso Piave
where it's found:
Veneto, FVG.
national
registry code number:
203.
color:
red.
