Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
prina as a specifi c local biotype yielding slightly
different wines). Other experts believe the
exact opposite is true: that Glera's birthplace is
the Colli Euganei. Still other experts believe
that Glera's home is Slovenia or Croatia, and
that the variety may have arrived in Prosecco
while in transit from outside Italy. The birth-
place diatribe aside, what nearly everyone
agrees upon is that the variety and its wines
were always highly thought of. Marescalchi and
Dalmasso (1937) agreed with Villifranchi that
this grape was used to make pucinum, the
famous wine of the Roman Empire and appar-
ently a favorite of Empress Livia Drusilla, wife
of Octavian Augustus, Rome's fi rst emperor
(Pliny the Elder localized its production near
Duino Aurisina, which is in fact located in the
Carso Triestino). Clearly, it's hard to verify that
pucinum, made thousands of years ago, was
really the product of Glera, so I'm not sure how
past and modern luminaries come to be so sure
about this. But as many other grape varieties
have been claimed to be the basis of pucinum,
Glera may not be the source of that historic
wine at all. Interestingly, the fi rst mention of
the word
Prosecco
associated with Veneto is
found in the dithyramb “Il roccolo” by Aureli-
ano Acanti (1754), which describes the
“melaro-
matico Prosecco”
produced near Monte Berico
(Vicenza) by Count Jacopo Ghellini. Experts
such as Villifranchi (1773) and Semenzi (1864)
all sung the praises of both grape and variety;
in 1772 Malvolti also spoke of Prosecco in glow-
ing terms (Calò, Paronetto, and Rorato 1996).
In fact, when the Società Enologica Trevigiana
was founded in 1868 in Veneto by Carpenè and
Benedetti, the grape and wine were specifi cally
targeted for study and promotion. Interestingly,
a few years later, Carpenè and Vianello (1874)
documented Prosecco's cultivation in only four
towns around Conegliano, Valdobbiadene, and
Asolo. Part of the reason for its lack of appeal,
despite the perceived quality of the wine, was
its lack of resistance to common vine pests.
While these scientists and experts often
referred for simplicity's sake to a single “Pro-
secco” or “Glera,” in reality this is a group of
varieties and biotypes long cultivated in Veneto
and in Friuli Venezia Giulia, as well as in Slo-
venia and Croatia. Though the list of grapes
named Prosecco or Glera-Something was
almost endless for the better part of three cen-
turies, until recently the general consensus was
that there was just one main variety which
could be subdivided into three “clones”: Pro-
secco Tondo (so called because of its round ber-
ries), Prosecco Lungo (because of its more
oblong, almost oval berries) and Prosecco Nos-
trano (“local” or “our” Prosecco); the fi rst was
selected in the seventeenth century by Count
Marco Giulio Balbi Valier, who tirelessly cham-
pioned the qualities of both grape and wine,
and the other two in the 1980s at the Istituto
Sperimentale per la Viticoltura at Conegliano.
Subsequent DNA profi ling has shown the three
to be distinct varieties; in fact Prosecco Nos-
trano, fi rst described by Sannino (1904) as
Prosecco Nostrano di Conegliano, isn't a Pro-
secco at all, but rather Malvasia Bianca Lunga
(Costacurta, Crespan, Milani, Carraro,
Flamini, Aggio, et al. 2003; Crespan, Cancel-
lier, Costacurta, Giust, Carraro, Di Stefano, and
Santangelo 2003). Though Prosecco Tondo and
Prosecco Lungo are distinct varieties, they are
related to a degree (Crespan, Cancellier, Chies,
Giannetto, Meneghetti, and Costacurta 2009)
and perhaps this is what induced scientists and
experts into thinking that the two were just
clonal variants.
In light of this revelation and the variety's
recent name change, there would seem to be
two varieties left: Prosecco Tondo, now renamed
Glera Tondo and usually called simply Glera,
and Prosecco Lungo, renamed Glera Lungo.
But in reality, there are many different varieties
still called Glera-Something in Italy's Carso
and the bordering Karst region of Slovenia; and
there are also many biotypes of each. For exam-
ple, it is noteworthy that Balbi Valier selected
not just the Tondo variety, but also a Tondo bio-
type that was especially perfumed and aromatic
and characterized by a loosely packed bunch,
now known as the Balbi biotype or Prosecco
Bianco. Another Prosecco biotype still common
