Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
bought sixteen thousand Fiano vines and had
them planted in the royal vineyard at Manfredo-
nia (Scienza and Boselli 2003).
Synonyms of Fiano rarely used nowadays
include Santa Sofi a (erroneous, since this is a
distinct cultivar), Fiore Mendillo, and Latino.
Fiano should not be confused with Puglia's
Fiano Minutolo, an unrelated variety (and aro-
matic, which Fiano is not) the name of which
has since been offi cially changed to Minutolo.
There are also records of a Fiano Rosa in Puglia;
documentation on it is scarce, though a study
by Caputo, Brini, Gasparro, Milella, Forleo,
Pepe, and Antonacci (2008) attempted to dif-
ferentiate between it and the other two Fiano-
named varieties.
The real Fiano was an extremely rare, alto-
gether forgotten variety as recently as the
1970s, a fact that might surprise those walking
into any Italian wine shop or restaurant today,
where seemingly endless lists of Fiano wines
await. In the early twentieth century, Fiano was
hardly mentioned in texts (an exception is
Cavazza in 1914) and by the 1940s the cultivar
was reduced to sporadic wines grown haphaz-
ardly in the Campanian countryside, the grapes
thrown among others to make local wine
blends. It was Antonio Mastroberardino of the
venerable Mastroberardino estate of Campania
who brought Fiano back from oblivion. By
searching out grapes in old vineyards around
Avellino, he was able to produce his fi rst vin-
tage in 1945, a grand total of thirty bottles.
From there production slowly grew, though it
remained small and little known right into the
1970s. Things began turning for the better in
the early 1980s: I remember attending a tasting
in 1981 organized by the Rome branch of the
International Food and Wine Society (sadly no
longer active) at a via Veneto hotel, where Mas-
troberardino presented unfamiliar wines made
with Greco and Fiano. The wine made with
Fiano especially elicited positive responses, and
while I thought then that the variety and the
wine might have a bright future, I admit I never
envisioned the rock star-like success Fiano
would meet with over the next three decades.
In fact, only ten years before, things still looked
glum. In an address given by Mastroberardino
in 1968 at the Accademia della Vite e del Vino,
he stated that the grapevine was grown only
sporadically near Avellino, and that old vines
yielded very low volumes of grapes and wine—
which is normal enough, considering the culti-
var's small bunch and berries. He concluded by
saying that the wine was of such noteworthy
quality, he hoped to see its production increase.
I am sure he had no idea at the time just how
prophetic he would turn out to be.
Fiano is a remarkable success story and an
example of what could be lost by not paying
proper attention to native varieties. In fact,
Fiano is so clearly a great wine grape that it is
now being actively planted in other regions
including Marche, Basilicata, Puglia, and Sicily,
as well as outside Italy in California and Aus-
tralia, for example.
Ampelographically, Fiano has medium-
small (150-220 grams), pyramidal bunches,
winged and compact; and medium-sized, oval
berries with thick, yellow-green skins that
show brown spots when ripe. A late ripener (it's
usually harvested in October), Fiano is very
sensitive to oidium and less so to peronospora;
its thick skins render it botrytis resistant. It is
this feature that allows late harvests in cold,
rainy parts of Campania. In the past, Fiano was
also a table grape, often made into raisins for
winter storage. Available clones include VCR 3,
VCR 107 (very common and not all that differ-
ent from the previous), Ampelos TEA 24,
Ampelos EVA 2, UNIMI-VITIS FIA VV 21, and
UNIMI-VITIS FIA VV 29.
In Italy Fiano grows in Campania especially,
but is also found in Puglia, Basilicata, and Sic-
ily. Internationally, it has found welcome homes
in California, Oregon, and Australia, where it
has been planted everywhere from the Barossa
Valley to Heathcote, Margaret River, Adelaide
Hills, and Riverland.
Which Wines to Choose and Why
The best-known wine is DOCG Fiano di Avel-
lino, made in close to thirty townships around
