Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
immediately southwest of Rome, by Cincin-
nato, the ancient Roman statesman and farmer
who settled in the area in the fi fth century
B
.
C
.
E
., after defeating the Equi tribe, and propa-
gated the variety. There is no hard proof of this
to the best of my knowledge, though they beg to
differ at the local, very high-quality wine coop-
erative named after Cincinnato. The variety
was once called Nero Buono di Cori, but the lat-
est European Union rules and regulations do
not allow place names to be attached to grape
varieties, and so the cultivar is now just Nero
Buono, much to the chagrin of fuming locals.
According to Marco Carpineti, Cori's best pro-
ducer, genetic analysis of Nero Buono has been
carried out at the Istituto Agrario di San
Michele all'Adige (recently renamed Fondazi-
one Edmund Mach), and though results are
pending, the variety appears unrelated to any of
the major known cultivars.
Nero Buono's name is a clear reference to its
dark grapes, and analyzing its anthocyanin pro-
fi le reveals a preponderance of malvin: the
grapes also have very low percentages of easily
oxidized pigments such as peonin and cyanin
and high levels of acylated anthocyanins, which
explains the potentially dark color of Nero
Buono wines. The variety likes higher altitudes
and volcanic soils; in Cori, where the vineyards
are as high up as fi ve hundred meters above sea
level, it fi nds both. The vines are a striking
sight: Nero Buono grows erect and there are
obvious differences, even to an untrained eye,
between the basal and apical leaves, the basal
ones trilobed and enormous, fi g leaf-like. Nero
Buono is very vigorous, but with low basal fer-
tility, so only the Guyot training system works
well. Almost all the recently planted vineyards
were selected from one specifi c site owned by a
grower called Corradini; later vines were also
selected from the parcel owned by Nazareno
Milita, president of the Cori cooperative. To
date there are no clones available, but a walk in
the Nero Buono vineyards will show many mor-
phologically different vines or biotypes. There-
fore, massal selection is the method by which to
identify plants that grow well and produce bet-
ter wine. Interestingly, if you observe different
Nero Buono vines you'll notice they often have
different-sized bunches but vigor is apparently
more or less the same (on the same soils and
rootstocks). A big problem is Nero Buono's
variable production, because it vegetates con-
tinuously; growers need to remove the leaves
even four or fi ve times a year. Marco Carpineti,
Cori's best wine producer and one of the truly
up-and-coming names in Italy, says it best:
“After you've done all that work deleafi ng, only
twenty days later you look at the vineyard and
you'd think nothing had been done, they've all
grown back.”
The cultivar does well on both calcareous
and volcanic soils: on the former it tends to give
more structure and body, while on the latter the
wines have more elegance. Of late, the pre-
ferred rootstocks are Kober 5BB and SO4, but
choosing the most appropriate rootstock is vital
in this Lazio corner, where there isn't much
summer rainfall, so vigor can't be curtailed too
much. Excessively long hang times are also not
recommended because Nero Buono's thin skins
tend to rip.
Which Wines to Choose and Why
In one of Italy's many complex bureaucratic
intrigues, the DOC Cori wine calls surprisingly
for only a maximum of 40 percent Nero Buono;
in the nearby Castelli Romani DOC Rosso,
where the variety has always been historically
less important than in Cori, it can be used for
up to 100 percent. Go fi gure. Of course IGT
wines can be 100 percent Nero Buono. Though
the grapes are characterized by low proanthocy-
anin levels, these are easily extracted, and so
the wines have higher total anthocyanin levels
than those made with many other red grape
varieties (Morassut and Cecchini 1995). A good
Nero Buono wine is grapey and vinous, light to
medium bodied, with juicy black fruit and
pleasant fresh herb aromas and fl avors. As it
ages, I have found it develops notes of quinine,
ink, and rhubarb. In an effort to increase struc-
ture and texture, producers attempt to dehy-
drate the berries somewhat, most often directly
