Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
of October), it needs plenty of sunlight, and so
greatly benefi ts from good exposures; however,
when grown in areas such as Ercolano and
Torre del Greco, it ripens extremely early, even
in late August, but I don't think this is an ideal
situation for Catalanesca. It's a rustic, produc-
tive variety but it is exquisitely sensitive to oid-
ium and care has to be taken especially in
warm summer months.
in the soil, and the wines seem to have bigger
structures and higher acidities—and this is
where Catalanesca is usually harvested in late
October. For what it's worth, I think that the
better examples of this wine are produced on
the northern slopes. And though Mastro-
beradino believes it to be aromatic, I think Cat-
alanesca is a neutral variety (though of course
there may be an aromatic biotype, or a
musqué
clone, or the aromatic catalanesca may be a dis-
tinct variety altogether), and so it is important
to extract as much of the aromatic potential
from its skin as possible. Sorrentino says that
she likes to “cryomacerate a part of my grapes,
though not all, because that could extract too
much potassium, thereby lowering the overall
acidity by precipitating tartrate crystals, giving
my wine a higher pH and a softer mouthfeel
that is not so typical of the variety.”
Which Wines to Choose and Why
Catalanesca del Monte Somma is the main IGT
wine, and can be produced in the townships of
San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, Massa di Somma,
Cercola, Pollena Trocchia, Sant'Anastasia,
Somma Vesuviana, Ottaviano, San Giuseppe
Vesuviano, and Terzigno. The guidelines also
allow for a
passito,
or air-dried, version to be
made, as was once common in the area. Catala-
nesca can give potentially very good wines, all
of which seem to have an obvious mineral bent
with a little bottle age, but start out life soft and
fruity, with hints of pineapple, apricot, and
apple.
According to Luigi Moio, whose team stud-
ied the variety at the University in Naples, Cata-
lanesca is characterized by high total acidity
and this should make it less prone to oxidation
than wines made with other Campanian white
varieties. Hence, he also expects well-made
wines to be able to age for at least four or fi ve
years after the vintage. Benny Sorrentino goes
one step further, pointing out that thus far,
given the still recent revival in interest in Cata-
lanesca, “nobody really knows what it could do
if planted on different soils.” Vesuvius is char-
acterized by two different
terroirs:
the south-
west slope that looks to the sea, where the towns
of Boscotrecase and Terzigno are located, and
the northern slope, Monte Somma, where
towns such as Sant'Anastasia and Somma
Vesuviana are found. The former is character-
ized by a geologically younger, more fertile soil,
resulting from multiple volcanic eruptions, and
richer in sand and minerals; grapes grown here
are picked sooner, and the wines seem to have
lower acidities. In the latter, there is more clay
wines to try:
Sorrentino*** (Katalò), Casa
Barone**, Cantine Olivella** (Katà and VO, the
latter an air-dried wine where VO stands for
Verso Ovest, in reference to the western expo-
sure of the vineyards).
Catarratto Bianco
where it's found:
Sicily.
national registry
code number:
58 (Cataratto Bianco Comune)
and 59 (Cataratto Bianco Lucido).
color:
white.
If you love waterfalls as I do, then you must
have a soft spot for the ultimate waterfall in
wine grape varieties: the name Cataratto refers
to the cataracts of wine the variety is very capa-
ble of producing. One understands why the
Cataratto
s have always been looked upon as
charming fellows in Sicilian farming circles,
where quantity not quality was the password for
most of the last couple centuries. There, the
Cataratto
s were both the base for everyday
quaffi ng wines and an integral part of the
wines of Marsala (though the best Marsala are
made with high percentages of Grillo). It was
only with the wine revolution of the 1980s that
people started looking at the
Cataratto
s as
