Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Garganega Grossa
is 100 percent Grecanico. Of course, this being
Italy, there may not even be a back label, or if
there is it may be of limited usefulness. A large
measure of good faith in what that back label
says will also help, though you can get around
that by buying the wines of producers you know
and trust.
In Australia, Domaine Day is making a Gar-
ganega wine and was reportedly the fi rst to do
so in Australia; more recently, Politini has
started bottling a Grecanico wine. The Domain
Day 2009 I tasted last year was simple and
fresh, with aromas and fl avors of pear, winter
melon, and almonds, and wouldn't have looked
out of place in a lineup of Soave wines from
Italy. The 2010 Grecanico by Politini was more
citrusy and had more grapefruit and tangerine
rather than the pear and almond nuances of the
Domain Day wine, but both are very enjoyable,
easy-drinking wines. I am told that Domain
Day also makes a very good sweet wine called
Dolcezza from late-harvested Garganega
grapes, but I have yet to try it.
See
DORONA
.
Giacchè
where it's found:
Lazio, Tuscany, Umbria.
national registry code number:
not regis-
tered.
color:
white.
Giacchè is a
teinturier
grape variety, a coloring
agent just like the members of the
Colorino
s. It
has one of the highest concentrations of polyphe-
nols of any variety in Italy: in fact, locals joke that
overenthusiastic imbibers fi nd it virtually impos-
sible to remove Giacchè stains from their clothes.
Historically Giacchè was always used to deepen
the hue of wines made elsewhere, especially in
Tuscany, but was never too popular otherwise,
for it's a very late-ripening variety, producing
very small wine volumes (mainly because of
extremely small berries). Therefore, it was slowly
abandoned and risked extinction. Researchers
believe it to be a descendant of a wild grapevine
species that mutated over the centuries, and in
fact its other name in Lazio is Ciambrusca, a
generic term also used to describe wild grape-
vines. There has been no genetic study of
Giacchè accessions to date, so we do not yet know
if this is a truly separate variety or just a biotype
of one of the many coloring agents Italy has,
such as Grand Noir and Abrostine. However, an
early genetic study using inverse sequence
tagged repeat fi ngerprinting (ISTR) and ampli-
fi ed fragment polymorphism length analysis
(AFLP), the molecular marker technology avail-
able at that time, compared Sangiovese varieties
and biotypes with coloring varieties such as Col-
orino del Valdarno, Colorino di Pisa, and Giacchè
(by Sensi, Vignaniz, Rohde, and Biricolti 1996).
A careful review of the results reveals that the
ISTR profi le of Giacchè differs from those of the
other
Colorino
varieties (and of course, from San-
giovese) and that the AFLP analysis also showed
genotypic diversity within the
Colorino
group.
Therefore, though further studies on the subject
are certainly needed, it appears that Giacchè is a
distinct coloring variety.
wines to try:
For Soave, try: Pieropan*** (Cal-
varino and the oak-aged La Rocca), Inama***
(Foscarino and du Lot), Prà*** (Staforte and
Monte Grande), Anselmi** (Capitel Croce),
Gini** (Salvarenza Vecchie Vigne), Ca' Rug-
ate* (Monte Fiorentine), Coffele*, Filippi*,
Nardello*, Suav ia*, Tamellini*, and Vicentini
Agostini*. For Recioto di Soave, try: Anselmi***
(I Capitelli) (though it can lack acidity), Piero-
pan** (Le Colombare), and Tamellini** (out-
standing, but made in a botrytis-affected, atypi-
cal style). For Gambellara, try: Domenico
Cavazza*** (Creari), Cristiana Meggiolaro**
(Gambellara Classico and Gambellara Classico
Ceneri delle Taibane), and Luigino Dal Maso**
(Fischele). For Recioto di Gambellara, try: La
Biancara***, Domenico Cavazza** (Capitel
Santa Libera), Zonin** (Podere il Giangio Aris-
tos), and Virgilio Vignato*** (makes an
extraordinary Vin Santo di Gambellara). For
Grecanico Dorato, try: Caruso & Minini* (Terre
di Giumara) and Settesoli* (Mandrarossa
Grecanico).
