Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Ortrugo
remember just how surprised we all were; the
wine was great and different from that made
with the Malvasia and so I decided to select the
best grapevines and propagate them.”
Mossi's choice proved to be a good one,
because in the 1980s Malvasia wine sales
slumped badly, and producers were left scamp-
ering for an alternative to offer consumers.
While others chose to try Chardonnay and
Pinot Bianco (a big mistake), Mossi went with
Ortrugo “because I thought it important to
offer people a wine made locally from grapes of
local importance.”
Simply analyzing the origin of the name
Ortrugo confi rms Mossi's recollections. Ortrugo
was originally called Altruga, as in “other grape”
(from
altro
), considered less important than the
other varieties it was blended with. The name we
know the variety by today was fi rst used by Toni
(1927): he described Ortrugo as one of the best
white varieties in the province of Piacenza. So
this really is a case of one century's dog, another
century's star. Which helps you understand
what native grapes have had to put up with in
their lifetimes.
Ortrugo is especially abundant around Pia-
cenza, in the d'Ardia, Nure, Tidone, and Treb-
bia valleys, but it is also found in Lombardy in
the Oltrepò Pavese area (and I'm not surprised,
given how much sparkling wine is made there).
where it's found:
Emilia-Romagna, Lom-
bardy.
national registry code number:
177.
color:
white.
Ortrugo had been relegated to the status of
a blending grape until the mid-1970s, when the
Mossi family began to select old vines and
make monovarietal wine. The University of
Piacenza also got involved, creating two clones
now commercially available, and consequently,
new Ortrugo vineyards have sprung up, right
next to old ones full of gnarly old vines result-
ing from massal selections. Chiara Azzali,
owner of Tenuta Pernice, one of the best pro-
ducers of Ortrugo wines, recalls planting the
variety for the fi rst time in 1980. “We liked
what we saw, or drank,” she smiles, “and so we
kept on planting it, in 1989, 2002, and again in
2005. The most interesting aspect about
Ortrugo is its great intravarietal variability: the
vines planted in 1980 from massal selections
all look very different, while clonal selections
planted in 2005 are identical to each other.”
There are three currently available Ortrugo
clones, PC ORT 80, PC ORT 81, and VCR 245.
Generally speaking, Ortrugo has large
cylindrical-conical compact bunches and
medium round berries. It does much better in
poorly fertile soils on hillsides, where its natu-
ral vigor is reduced. It performs less well in
soils that are magnesium defi cient, is prone to
desiccation of the spine and is susceptible to the
European grapevine moth.
Luigi Mossi is called the father of Ortrugo:
it's thanks to him that we have Ortrugo and its
wines to talk about. “I can't really take that
much credit,” he objects modestly. “In the early
1970s, all we made and drank here was Malva-
sia wine, and nobody knew what Ortrugo wine
might taste like since everyone blended it with
their Malvasia. I had a small parcel of Ortrugo
vines planted in a hard-to-work spot, and so
they survived essentially on their own. When I
decided to replant that site too, curiosity pushed
me to see what a wine made only with Ortrugo
would taste like before I uprooted everything. I
Which Wines to Choose and Why
The best pure examples of Ortrugo can be had
in the DOC wine Colli Piacentini Ortrugo. IGT
wines that may be up to 100 percent Ortrugo
are Bianco di Castelfranco Emilia, dell'Emilia,
Forlì, Ravenna, and Rubicone. It is also used in
small percentages in the Vin Santo di Vigoleno
blend. Even a well-made Ortrugo will never win
your nose over with unbelievably intense aro-
mas or your palate with a magically mouthcoat-
ing texture, but the wines are always fresh,
clean, and crisp. Sparkling Ortrugo wines are
not unlike a good Prosecco (but are usually less
fruity and more mineral) while still Ortrugo
wines have a nice lemony, green apple, deli-
cately herbal, and minerally personality. The
