Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Vignamare vineyard (in fact Gulfi 's w ine called
Carjcanti, which is mainly Carricante, does con-
tain a little Albanello), and hopes to make a
monovarietal wine someday soon. I hope so too.
with Trebbiano Toscano (explaining the Treb-
biano Erbarolo or even Albarola Trebbiana syn-
onyms), especially near Liguria's border area
with Tuscany. This should come as no big sur-
prise, because at one point or other, almost
every Italian white grape variety has been
taken to be Trebbiano Toscano (probably due to
the latter variety being grown all over the
country).
If today we know more about Albarola and
its wines, credit must go to Daniele Lugano,
owner of the Bisson estate, who, at the end of
the 1970s, decided to try making a pure
Albarola wine. There are four known clones of
Albarola (VCR 3, VCR 14, VCR 17, and CVT
Kihlgren). Of these, the fi rst three are of more
or less of equal value. The Kihlgren clone, offi -
cially available since 2012, was named in honor
of the owner of the vineyard where it was found,
in Sarzana (Torello Marinoni, Raimondi, Ruffa,
Lacombe, and Schneider 2009; Mannini,
Schneider, Argamante, Moggia, and Tragni
2010). Its looser and smaller bunches are use-
ful characteristics in inclement weather, as
Albarola's tightly squeezed berries have a ten-
dency to break, and are easy prey to molds and
other pests. Recently, research has suggested
that Albarola di Lavagna, listed everywhere as a
synonym of Albarola, is neither identical nor
even a biotype, but an altogether different grape
(Botta, Scott, Eynard, and Thomas 1995;
recently duplicated by the previously mentioned
2009 study by Torello Marinoni et al.). Albarola
di Lavagna differs because of its habitat too,
since it only grows in Liguria's Val Graveglia
and near Chiavari, in the eastern part of the
region. Whether Dell'Olio and Macaluso inad-
vertently studied Albarola di Lavagna instead of
true Albarola, thereby generating confusion
relative to the Albarola / Bianchetta Genovese
question, is a matter of conjecture.
Albarola is a very pretty grape and remarka-
bly easy to spot in the vineyards, given its nearly
round, indentation-free leaves and translucent,
pale berries (I don't wish to add fuel to the con-
troversy, but I will point out that while Bian-
chetta Genovese grapevines look very much like
wines to try:
Cantine Gulino** (Pretiosa;
pure Albanello, though it used to include 20
percent Chardonnay), Arianna Occhipinti*
(SP68; 85 percent Albanello and 15 percent
Moscato di Alessandria).
Albarola
where it's found:
Liguria, Tuscany.
national
registry code number:
8 (also at number 26
as Bianchetta Genovese).
color:
white.
Near Genoa, Albarola is also known as
Bianchetta Genovese (or Bianchetta
tout court
),
though the latter was until recently believed to
be a separate variety. In fact, Bianchetta Geno-
vese is still listed as a separate variety at num-
ber 26 in the National Registry. In 1965,
Dell'Olio and Macaluso wrote that it was highly
unlikely that Albarola and Bianchetta Genovese
were identical, since what they believed to be
the true Albarola was historically grown only in
the Cinque Terre and near La Spezia. Accord-
ing to them, it became common elsewhere in
Liguria only in the wake of post-phylloxeric
replanting. No surprise then that Albarola is
the name more commonly used from La Spezia
and Sarzana into Tuscany (where it is also
named Erbarola or Erbarola Trebbiana), while
Bianchetta is still used in Liguria's Val Polcè-
vera and Riviera di Levante (areas west and east
of Genova). However, Dell'Olio and Macaluso's
view is in contrast with Gallesio's identifi cation
of Albarola with a so-called Bianchetta del
Genovesato in the early nineteenth century; in
1993, Schneider, Mannini, and Argamante con-
fi rmed that Albarola and Bianchetta Genovese
are identical. Furthermore, the morphological
descriptions of Albarola and Bianchetta Geno-
vese by Dall'Olio and Macaluso differ only
mildly. In any case, both names clearly refer to
the grape's whitish-green, almost translucent
berries. In the past, Albarola was also confused
