Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Still often called Friularo because it was
believed to be a native of the Friuli Venezia Giu-
lia region, Raboso Piave is one of Italy's oldest
varieties: the fi rst historical information we
have relative to the wine is from the thirteenth
century, when it was called
vinum plavense
according to Calò, Paronetto, and Rorato
(1996), though it's not clear to me how anyone
could be really sure that wine was made with
Raboso Piave. For much of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, Raboso Piave was thought
to be different variety from Friularo; descrip-
tions of a Friularo a Pecol Ros (with a red stalk),
thought to be Raboso Piave, and a Friularo a
Pecol Vert (green stalked), believed to be the
true Friularo, abound in the scientifi c and pop-
ular literature of those times. Subsequently, it
was shown that the stalk-related color differ-
ences are only the result of the different envi-
ronments the grapevines grow in. Therefore,
Friularo and Raboso Piave are one and the
same. The diffi culty with this is that Friularo
and Raboso Friularo are not one and the same,
though these two names are used interchange-
ably to mean Raboso Piave. However, according
to Salmaso, Dalla Valle, and Lucchin (2008),
who analyzed nineteen grapevines at thirty
nuclear and three chloroplast microsatellite
loci, Friularo is synonymous with Raboso
Piave, while Raboso Friularo is a synonym of
Raboso Veronese. Further studies on this issue
are probably required.
In any case, an 1868 document attests that a
family called De Vindimian (or Widmann)
transported Raboso Piave to Veneto from Friuli
Venezia Giulia, though it seems likely others
had done so before. However, in those times
the boundaries of Friuli Venezia Giulia were
much larger than today, stretching as far as the
Piave's left bank; therefore it seems likely that
Raboso
was at that time in fact growing in what
is today Veneto. According to Carpenè and
Vianello, by 1874
Raboso
was cultivated in thirty
different townships around Treviso and over
fourteen thousand hectoliters of wine were pro-
duced yearly (so it seems unlikely that so much
raboso could be made if the vines had been
brought over from Friuli Venezia Giulia just six
years earlier).
Raboso
's popularity increased
further in the early twentieth century: it is esti-
mated that by 1930, almost 90 percent of the
wine made around Treviso involved Raboso
Piave.
Raboso Piave's popularity might be puz-
zling at fi rst glance, since it has always been
associated with the production of high-acid,
tannic, and deeply colored wines that were
thought of mainly as ideal blending agents for
more anemic wines made elsewhere. In past
centuries, Raboso wine was referred to as a
vin
sgarboso,
meaning a rude, tough wine (
sgarbato
is impolite or rude). Alas, those were poorer
and simpler times, in which high-acid, tannic
wines were much in demand not just as blend-
ing agents but as a source of calories, while
after the 1960s that same wine style was tragi-
cally out of fashion. This very high acidity also
made Raboso Piave wines better suited to hot
weather and to lengthy travels made in perilous
conditions (for example, poor storage and
extreme temperature variations), and this
explains why
Raboso
wines were locally nick-
named
vin da viaio
(
vin da viaggio
in Italian)
meaning that they could be taken on voyages.
This extreme, harsh acidity also explains why
the grape fell out of favor and was largely
replaced by French imports such as Cabernet
Sauvignon and Merlot. In fact, it was custom-
ary centuries ago to blend raboso with gentler
wine made from Pinot Nero, in an effort to
tame both tannins and acidity. Given the acid
and tannic nature of Raboso Piave, Giacomo
Agostinetti di Cimadolmo (1679) recom-
mended using—or blending with—biotypes
Rabosina and Rabosazza, which also performed
better when late harvested but were intrinsi-
cally “
garbe di natura,
” of a gentler nature.
In more modern times, different viticultural
and winemaking techniques (such as extensive
deleafi ng and air-drying) have been studied
and employed to decrease the grape's naturally
occurring high malic and tartaric acidities and
tannins. Clonal selection has also been aimed
at developing less acid, less tannic grapevines.
