Grape Groups and Families - Native Wine Grapes of Italy - page 117

wasn't even the most common or best-known
Refosco of the time.
An almost-endless list of synonyms, a prob-
lem typical of all grape varieties that have been
around for a very long time, has always plagued
the Refosco s. Since a Refosco wine made in
Friuli Venezia Giulia was documented as early
as 1390, at least one of these varieties is very
old, though perhaps not old enough to have
been (as some experts have written) the variety
used to make pucinum, the famous wine of
ancient Rome, which was reportedly a favorite
of Livia, wife of Octavian Augustus, first
emperor of Rome. Besides, the lineup of grape
pretenders to pucinum is lengthy, and the
Refos co s are complicated enough as it is.
In the early nineteenth century, Di Maniago
listed three different Refosco s: Refosc Dolz
(with large, loosely-packed berries), Refosc
(which gave a lighter wine), and Refoschin
(with large, very round berries, grown in both
fl atlands and hillsides). Obviously, in this case
the diminutive refoschin referred to the light-
bodied wine, and not the grape variety. How-
ever, during the same century, many other
Refosco s were mentioned, such as Refosco dal
Pecol Vert (or del Peduncolo Verde, both refer-
encing its green stalk), Refosco dal Pecol Rosso
(del Peduncolo Rosso, red stalk), Refosco
d'Istria, Refosco di Rauscedo, Refosco di Fae-
dis, Refosco del Boton, Refosco di Vicenza,
Refosco di Pagnacco, Refosco di Pozzuolo,
Refosco di Roncus, Refosco Ungherese, Uva di
Guarnieri (later renamed, you guessed it,
Refosco Guarnieri), with a couple of white-
berried Refosco s thrown in for good measure.
You couldn't be blamed for thinking that every
town in the area had its own specifi c Refosco
growing in its vineyards.
A landmark research study made the single
biggest inroads toward shining a light on the
starless night that is all things Refosco, suggest-
ing that the members of the Refosco family are
best divided into two subgroups (Costacurta,
Calò, Carraro, Giust, Aggio, Borsa, et al. 2005).
The fi rst includes two distinct varieties, Refosco
del Peduncolo Rosso and Refosco d'Istria,

THE REFOSCO GROUP

Few other Italian grapes and wines cause big-
ger headaches than the Refosco group: and
that's without drinking the wines. This is
because this so-called family of grapes com-
prises a group of genetically heterogeneous
varieties with little in common besides a few
physical characteristics, viticultural behaviors,
and their limited area of cultivation. Not that
this situation is all that different from that of
many other Italian indigenous cultivars (con-
sider the Greco s and the Malvasia s), but in the
case of the Refosco s, confusion reaches levels
absurd even by Italian standards and mistaken
attributions throughout the centuries have
been raised to the level of an art form. Suffi ce
to say that when I asked Paolo Sivilotti, formerly
lead researcher at Friuli Venezia Giulia's
Regional Institute for the Development and
Promotion of Agriculture for a clarifi cation on
the Refosco s (after having received completely
different answers from many other local uni-
versity experts), his immediate reply was, “lis-
ten, nobody understands anything about
Refosco s.”
As usual, genetic studies using microsatel-
lite methodologies have helped shed light on
the intricate parentage and relationships of the
various Refosco s, but as the words refosco and
refoˇk are used in Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia to
name what are in effect distinct varieties, for
now much remains to be clarifi ed and verifi ed.
Mercifully, Carlo Petrussi, perhaps the single
greatest living expert on Friuli Venezia Giulia
native varieties, has completed years of research
(published in 2013 in a new topic by Sivilotti
and Stocco) and clarifi ed matters somewhat.
Even more important to wine drinkers, experts
have always agreed upon the potential high
quality of Refosco wines, though this is strictly
correlated to their habitat, as in general the
Refosco varieties are not a particularly adaptable
bunch. Nonetheless, at the 1891 Austrian Eno-
logical Congress, the most famous Refosco of
our day, Refosco del Peduncolo Rosso, was
deemed the “queen of all Friuli grapes.” And it