Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fumin's proof that absolutely brilliant individu-
als can at times be totally without a clue. At the
same time, had it not been for those farmers
and wine producers who were fi ercely loyal to
their neighborhood grape variety, Fumin might
well have gone the way of other now-extinct
grape varieties of the Valle d'Aosta.
Many years removed, it's not always easy to
fathom why esteemed luminaries would decide
to pan a grape variety. Clearly, the people of the
Valle d'Aosta had always thought highly of
Fumin, and records attest to its prevalence and
economic importance in the region's viticul-
ture. Though monovarietal wines were not
made with it, Fumin was always added to local
red wine blends to increase their color and body
(D'Agata 2001a). The fi rst mention of a Fumin
grape variety is that of Lorenzo Francesco
Gatta, one of Italy's great grape historians, who
described it in 1838. Back then Fumin was one
of the most abundant grape varieties grown in
both the high and central portions (the Alta
and Media Valle) of the Valle d'Aosta. He even
described two different Fumin varieties: one
had leaves which were heavily indented and
characterized by red streaks, the other had
smaller leaves lacking any red hue. Gatta mis-
takenly believed that this second Fumin variety
was identical to Freisa (a native variety of Pied-
mont), an opinion shared by another expert,
Napoleon Bich; we now know that Freisa and
Fumin are unrelated. Bich also left us descrip-
tions of two Fumins, which he referred to as
maclo
(male) and
femella
(female); the latter
was believed to give better wines. My female
readers might revel in the knowledge that it
appears the
maclo
subtype was characterized as
a “lazy” variety, growing poorly and unreliably,
and it thus lost out in time to the more level-
headed, consistently productive female sub-
type, which is the more common one today.
The fact that Fumin was once very abundant in
the Valle d'Aosta vineyards is also documented
by a report in an 1877 Central Government
Ampelology Committee survey that found over
30 percent of the vines grown around the towns
of Gressan, Aymavilles, and Jovençan to be
Fumin. Much as Gatta and Bich before him, Di
Rovasenda (1877) describes fumin as a darkly
colored, satisfying wine that reaches good alco-
hol levels and requires bottle age. In more mod-
ern times, DNA testing by Vouillamoz and
Moriondo (2011) have shown Fumin to have a
parent-offspring relationship with Vuillermin,
another native Valle d'Aosta grape that is on the
rise. Most likely, Fumin is the parent, in part
because all historical documentation of its pres-
ence precedes that of Vuillermin (Fumin is
fi rst documented in 1785, Vuillermin only in
1890). What's more, a fraternal relationship
has been established between Fumin and Petit
Rouge (Vouillamoz, Maigre, and Meredith
2003); the latter discovery tells us that Fumin
cannot be the offspring of Vuillermin, since
that would make Vuillermin one of the parents
of Petit Rouge, which recent DNA analysis
excludes.
Viticulturally, Fumin also proves popular,
as it is a hardy, disease-resistant variety; and as
if that weren't enough good news for perenni-
ally weather-challenged farmers, it also hap-
pens to be right at home in cold weather, a qual-
ity whose importance was, and is, not lost on
those farming in an alpine landscape. Bless-
edly, Fumin is not an early budding or early
fl owering variety, which means it is not suscep-
tible to the double whammy of spring frosts
and berry shot. It is also characterized by good
vigor and productivity, though both can be
unreliable, depending on the subtype. Fumin's
resistance to the cold explains why it was his-
torically planted in the north-exposed vineyard
sites of the valley, and on the colder right bank
of the Dora Baltea, while more delicate varieties
were planted in warmer sites with southern
exposure. Though the global warming scenario
may change things (and to some extent it
already has), vineyards with northern expo-
sures are rare in viticulture, as historically the
goal for farmers everywhere has been to maxi-
mize ripeness, and hence sugar levels in the
grapes, so as to make wines of decent alcoholic
strength. Yet there is also another reason why
Fumin is, much like Merlot in Bordeaux, very
