Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
continued to use the older term out of habit. By
analogy, consider whether, should you have a
stomach problem or break an arm, you would
prefer to go to a gastroenterology or orthopedic
clinic, or to a gastoenterography (whatever that
may be) or orthography clinic. In the latter they
might teach you to write better, but it might
prove hard to do with a broken arm.
“People can't speak to each other if they
don't know if they're talking about the same
grape variety,” says Carole Meredith, a viticul-
turist and plant geneticist at the University of
California at Davis in California, to whom we
are all indebted for the great advances made in
the past twenty years in identifying grape varie-
ties accurately (Meredith 2002). Stella Grando,
a professor at the Research and Innovation
Center of the Applied Molecular Laboratory at
the Fondazione Mach of the Istituto San
Michele all'Adige and one of Italy's greatest
(and nicest) grapevine scientists, told me that
she feels exactly the same way: “A variety-ori-
ented enology, aiming to obtain a distinct wine
from a specifi c cultivar, requires complete
knowledge of the cultivar itself.”
twenty-seven white). In the nineteenth century,
Italy saw the creation of its fi rst varietal collec-
tions, and experts such as Gatta (1838), Agaz-
zotti (1867), Mendola (1868), Incisa (1869),
Di Rovasenda (1877), Gerini (1882), and Bianchi
(1893) described accessions with ever greater
accuracy. In 1872, the fi rst International Com-
mission of Ampelography was convened in
Vienna: it coordinated European viticultural
efforts and led to a catalogue listing the grape
varieties of Europe. In Italy, the Comitato Cent-
rale Ampelografi co (Central Ampelographic
Committee) and the Commissioni Ampelo-
grafi che Provinciali (Provincial Ampelographic
Committees) were born: their mission was to
study all of the nation's grape varieties, includ-
ing their winemaking potential. Their work was
summarized in the
Bollettini Ampelografici
(Ampelographic Bulletins) published mainly
between 1876 to 1887 and still extremely useful
today. Other countries developed varietal cata-
logues, containing either drawings or photo-
graphs of grapes: best known are those of
France's Viala and Vermorel (1901, 1909).
Italy's Molon (1906) was also among the Italian
experts called upon to contribute to Viala and
Vermorel's opus. In Italy, the Istituto Sperimen-
tale per la Viticoltura di Conegliano Veneto
(Research Institute for Viticulture), now called
the CRA-VIT Centro Ricerche per la Viticoltura,
was founded in 1923 as the Regia Stazione Sper-
imentale di Viticoltura ed Enologia, and has
been the leader in the selection and conserva-
tion of Italy's grapevine genetic material over
the years. From the beginning, grape variety
collections were set up in the experimental vine-
yards of a farm in the town of Susegana (near
Treviso). By 1967 the numbers of grape varie-
ties grown had doubled, and since then many
similar, world-class research institutions dedi-
cated to grapevine study have been created.
HISTORY OF AMPELOGRAPHY IN ITALY
AND EUROPE
Before modern biomolecular techniques
became available, all we had to describe grape
varieties was ampelography. The ancient
Romans made the fi rst attempts at classifying
grape varieties in an orderly fashion. The sim-
plest classifi cation divided grape varieties into
two broad categories, table grapes (e.g.,
ad men-
sam, ad cibariae, ad suburbanae
) and wine
grapes (e.g.,
ad bibendum, ad vindemias
), and
then by descriptors such as berry color and
grapevine phenological characteristics.
The fi rst true ampelographers were born in
the nineteenth century. In Italy, Acerbi and Gal-
lesio were the most famous, but there were
other experts, such as Ciro Pollini, whose trea-
tise in 1822 on the vines and grapes of the
Verona province alone described roughly eighty
different grape varieties (fifty-five red and
AMPELOLOGY, OR THE IDENTIFICATION
OF GRAPE VARIETIES
Ampelology is more of a science than the art
for m ampelography was ( and is) , and it includes
