Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Inspired, Staderini decided to plant Abrostine
in his ex-wife's Podere Santa Felicità estate in
Pratovecchio near Arezzo. He chose a massal
selection (no clones are available for this little-
known variety) obtained from the San Felice
estate in Castelnuovo Berardenga; 2006 was
the fi rst vintage of his wine.
Staderini's techniques are designed to bring
out the best in Abrostine, admittedly a diffi cult
variety to work with. For one, he believes that
“given Abrostine's color intensity and wealth of
polyphenols, it never needs to macerate for
more than three or four days. I use new, small
oak barrels [for the malolactic transformation],
since I believe the wine needs oxygen contact
to smoothen and avoid developing strongly
reductive odors, which are always present with
Abrostine.” The wine stays in barrels for
roughly two years, “but I add about three kilos
of white grape lees during the fi rst and second
years in barrel, to help increase mouthfeel,
looking for greater unctuousness in a wine
that's otherwise too tannic and rigid. Without
this addition, I'd need to age the wine at least
another year in bottle prior to releasing it for
sale, and that's a long time to go without sell-
ing a single bottle.” In normal to excellent vin-
tages, the cultivar ripens well with good sugar
accumulation (musts go into barrel with as
much as 150 grams per liter of sugar); however,
since it is a late ripener, Abrostine must be
planted due south for maximal sunlight expo-
sure to achieve full ripeness and the softest
tannins.
Currently, Abrostine is grown only in Tus-
cany (most likely, there are farmers growing
Abrostine elsewhere in Italy without knowing
it), and its most common destiny is to be added
in small percentages to red wine blends. With
one exception, there are no monovarietal Abros-
tine wines, DOC or IGT. The one exception is
made by Staderini: the wine is fairly rich and
creamy, with vanilla, black pepper, juniper,
dried prune, and dark cherry aromas and fl avors
complicated by hints of underbrush and tobacco.
On the palate, it's actually much lighter bodied
and less complex than the nose implies, and is
blessed with lovely acidity and decently smooth
tannins. Abrostine may not be the second com-
ing of Pinot Nero, but it's not Concord either.
wines to try:
Podere Santa Felicità** (Sem-
premai).
Abrusco
where it's found:
Tu sc a ny.
national regis-
try code number:
347.
color:
red.
All but forgotten today, Abrusco (rarely
called Raverusto) is an ancient variety that was
described by Soderini in 1600 and by Di
Rovasenda in 1877, and more recently, by
Pisani, Bandinelli, and Camussi in 1997.
Beyond that there is little or no information
available on this variety. The cultivar may be
related to the
Lambrusco
family (the name
Abrusco is believed to derive from Lambrusco)
though not to the
Colorino
s, as was initially
believed. It also appears to be closely related to
Abrostine, another
teinturier
variety and Tus-
can native; in fact, some experts believe that the
two are identical, but this is controversial (see
ABROSTINE entry). Unfortunately, many of
the
Colorino
s, Abrostine, and Abrusco look
alike, so confusing them is easy. In this respect,
it is not the least bit surprising that Ducci,
Fausto, D'Onofrio, Ferroni, and Scalabrelli
(2012) have recently shown that many Abrusco
accessions they investigated in the Tuscan
countryside around Pisa are in fact Colorino del
Valdarno. This doesn't necessarily mean that
Abrusco and Colorino del Valdarno are one and
the same, as is reported in the Italian vitis data-
base (www.vitisdb.it), but rather that some Col-
orino del Valdarno grapevines were originally
misidentifi ed as Abrusco. As we have seen in
chapter 1, similar mistaken identifi cations are
unfortunately common in ampelology. By con-
trast, according to Stefano Dini—a viticulture
expert who works for the Matura group of wine-
makers and viticulturalists, set up years ago by
Attilio Pagli and Alberto Antonini—these two
varieties are extremely similar but show defi -
nite genetic differences.
