Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
a nice saline edge. In other words, the master
did not churn out a massive, caricatured,
and completely unrealistic molinara just
because it was a Quintarelli wine. Interest-
ingly, the Amarone Vajo Armaron from the
Serego Alighieri estate from the 1970s and
early 1980s contained as much as 30 percent
Molinara and was always characterized by a
lighter mouthfeel and wonderful drinkability
(it was also aged partly in cherrywood, adding
a sweet, soft quality). Many modern-day wine
critics who aren't aware of these two facts
complain that the Serego Alighieri wines are
less concentrated than other Amarone wines
tasted alongside, which they always invariably
score higher. It's not that one wine is better
than the other: rather, they are different, and
should be so, given the different varietal
makeup of each. There's more than one lesson
to learn there.
but it looks like Monica to me: most likely, the
former is a biotype of the latter.
The fact is that there are multiple varieties
named
Monica
growing on the island, but most
are completely unrelated. For years, nurseries
selected
Monica
grapevines growing in the
southern reaches of Sardinia, thinking that any
Monica
was the same as all the other
Monica
s,
but we now know this not to be the case. A
study by De Mattia, Imazio, Grassi, Lovicu, Tar-
daguila, Failla, et al. (2007) described how
many of the differently named
Monica
s in Sar-
dinia (where the term “Monica” is usually fol-
lowed by a name indicating the cultivation area,
or the place of supposed origin, or the color)
had identical SSR profi les, implying they were
all the same variety. The only
Monica
that was
truly distinct in the group of accessions studied
was the
Monica
from the Sorgono area, which
was found to be ampelographically and geneti-
cally identical to the Nieddu Mannu accession
grown in the Padria area. Some have therefore
taken this to mean that Monica and Nieddu
Mannu are identical, which besides constitut-
ing a considerable leap of faith (given the low
number of accessions in the study), is also
fraught with danger of broadcasting wrong
information. Seeing that there are almost too
many
Monica
s to count on the island, it is more
than likely that many will prove genetically dis-
tinct from the others. As was precisely shown
by a more recent study. When Lovicu, Farci,
Sedda, Labra, De Mattia, Grassi, Bacchetta, and
Orrù (2010) studied Sardinian grapevine biodi-
versity, they collected seven dark-berried
Monica
s (Monica Nera), two white-berried
Monica
s (Monica Bianca), and one that had
lighter colored, almost pink berries (Monica
Rosa). Their work showed that the white-ber-
ried and dark-berried
Monica
s are not muta-
tions but distinct cultivars. The Monica Bianca
of the Campidano area was synonymous with
another rare island white grape called Pansale
(not Pascale, which is a red grape) and distinct
from the Monica Bianca growing in the
Marmilla area; the “Monica” from the Sar-
cidano countryside was identical to Manzesu, a
wines to try:
Quintarelli***, Buglioni** (Il
Vigliacco, lightly sparkling), Carlo Boscaini**,
La Dama * (L'Aura Rosato), Monte Saline* (also
a sparkler), and Secondo Marco* (owned by
Marco Speri and where the world-famous
Attilio Pagli consults; the wine, Solo Tu, was
sold for the fi rst time in late 2012, a very light,
high-acid
rosato
-like wine).
Monica
where it's found:
Sardinia.
national regis-
try code number:
149.
color:
red.
Once called Monaca, Monica's other syn-
onyms include Niedda Mora and Mora di
Spagna; the latter names attest to a possible
Spanish origin. Cettolini and Mameli (1933)
hypothesized that Monica was identical to
Spain's Morillo variety, but this is not so.
Genetic characterization at twelve SSR loci has
demonstrated a close affi nity with Nieddu
Mannu, with which Monica shares one allele in
each of the twelve loci, and with another little-
known variety called Carenisca, typical of the
Sulcis area of Sardinia. I have seen Carenisca
during my wine travels (there's not much of it),
