Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Lacrima
in Italian means tear, and one look at
the berry of this unique Italian native grape
tells you why it is so named: the berries are in
fact tear shaped. But the wine, though little-
known, is so good that the only tears it will
bring are of joy. Another hypothesis is that the
name comes from the fact that the ripe grape's
thin skin breaks easily, therefore tearing on the
vine and in your hands (Lacrima is also a deli-
cious table grape). Stefano Mancinelli, perhaps
the most famous producer of Lacrima di Morro
d'Alba wine supports the latter hypothesis, and
I am not about to argue.
The variety is an aromatic red grape and
apparently closely related to Aleatico (Filippetti,
Silvestroni, Thomas, Intrieri 2001), while it has
nothing to do with Lacryma Christi, a wine
from Campania made with different grapes.
Many different grape varieties have been
named Lacrima throughout the centuries, all
more or less unrelated, the only point in com-
mon being berries shaped somewhat like tears
or kidney beans. The bunch is medium-large
and pyramidal, and the berries are round to
tear-shaped. This is obvious even in the writ-
ings of two of Italy's greatest ampelographers,
Di Rovasenda (1877) and Molon (1906). the
true Lacrima variety is nowadays considered
the one grown in the Marche, where the wine
was a favorite of Emperor Federico Barbarossa
in 1167. That didn't stop the cultivar from risk-
ing extinction, as the thin skin that breaks eas-
ily is a magnet for all sorts of pests and diseases
(otherwise, it's a very resistant variety). Another
problem for Lacrima is its limited affi nity with
all American rootstocks, with a callus forma-
tion at the site of grapevine-rootstock insertion.
The callus tends to increase in size over time,
strangling the grapevine trunk and blocking
off lymphatic fl ow, ultimately killing the vine.
According to Mancinelli, the most successful
Lacrima-rootstock combination is with 1103
Paulsen. There are no offi cial clones available.
Once plentiful in the Marche, Emilia-
Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Campania, and
Puglia, today it is common only in the fi rst
region. Even in the Marche it is limited mainly
to the province of Ancona, where the DOC wine
Lacrima di Morro d'Alba (258 hectares under
vine) is produced. Still, this is quite an increase
from only twenty-fi ve years ago: in 1985, when
the fi rst DOC for Lacrima di Morro d'Alba was
created, there were only seven known hectares
of Lacrima under vine, surviving thanks to the
dedication and passion of producers such as
Stefano Mancinelli. He and his colleagues have
been amazingly successful, as those initial
scant seven hectares became twenty-eight in
1994-95, sixty-fi ve in 1999-2000, and more
than two hundred today. Don't confuse this
Lacrima with another distinct variety in Tus-
cany, called Lacrima del Valdarno, which is
extremely rare nowadays.
The best
crus
are those around Senigallia,
where the soils are rich in clay and have south-
ern exposures. The name Morro d'Alba often
confuses people, who believe it is in Piedmont,
home to the other famous town called simply
Alba, in the center of Barolo and Barbaresco
production. Morro d'Alba is instead in the prov-
ince of Ancona, and its name derives from the
terms
mur
(rock, cliff) and
alba
(high hill).
Which Wines to Choose and Why
Though legislation states that Lacrima di Morro
d'Alba need contain as little as 85 percent Lac-
rima, the best wines are made with nothing
else. The 85 percent requirement has been in
place since the very fi rst DOC was instituted,
and back then (1985) the inclusion of white
grapes such as Verdicchio was allowed too.
This enabled producers to make a slightly
lighter-colored wine (Lacrima gives extremely
dark, deep-hued wines, almost blackish). In the
1999 revision of the DOC legislation, the non-
Lacrima 15 percent was limited to nonaromatic
red grapes. Nonaromatic grapes is a
conditio
sine qua non,
for Lacrima di Morro d'Alba is an
aromatic wine, guaranteed to turn heads espe-
cially of those who have never tried it before.
The intense aroma of lavender, red rose, cinna-
mon, and nutmeg is unforgettable, coupled
with strongly saline and fl oral dark berry and
black cherry fl avors. Think of it as similar to a
