Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
literally translated, “little red one,” but there's
nothing little about Petit Rouge. Given its diffu-
sion, the number of different wines made by a
slew of producers, and its long history, it's a real
giant among Valle d'Aosta's native grapes.
and in the royal courts of Europe, where the
wine was a huge success. Picolit was so impor-
tant and highly thought of that fakes were com-
mon already in the eighteenth century (Ber-
gamini and Novajra 2000), a problem also
present in later centuries. Above all, Picolit is
one of the few truly Italian wines to have a
noble history, something not true even of
Brunello or Amarone.
Two people were especially important for
Picolit's rise to fame, as they did much to fur-
ther the cause of both grape and wine. In the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
Count Fabio Asquini from Fagagna was a
Picolit PR machine, bottling his production in
handblown Murano glass bottles and selling all
over Europe in personally owned wine shops.
As a result, Picolit wine became a major com-
petitor to the famous Hungarian Tokaj. Made
from air-dried grapes (late harvesting on the
vine is a risky proposition in Friuli Venezia
Giulia's cool, northern, and especially rainy cli-
mate) and variously affected by noble rot
depending on the vintage, Picolit shares more
than a few similarities with the Hungarian
sweet wine, and it therefore appealed to much
of the same noble Euro crowd. Cultivation of
Picolit declined in the nineteenth century
because the female fl owers led to unreliable
fruit set; plus, the unpredictable development
of noble rot diminished grower enthusiasm. It
was only in the 1950s that another count, Gae-
tano Perusini, brought the grape and wine suc-
cessfully back to life. Beginning in the 1930s,
with only a few sporadic vines still alive,
Perusini set out in the hillside vineyards of his
family's Rocca Bernarda castle to fi nd the
healthiest-looking Picolit vines, which he then
selected and propagated. It's fair to say that if
Picolit is being talked about today, Perusini
deserves most of the credit; without his efforts,
there may not have been any Picolit to talk
about.
With Picolit, the name tells the story. It's a
deformation of
piccolitto,
meaning “small,” and
one look at the grape cluster tells you why: it's
downright scrawny, with very few berries (a
wines to try:
Anselmet*** (full of red-berried
fruity charm and mouthwatering acidity; you'll
have trouble putting the glass back down; their
Torrette is excellent too), L'Atouéyo** (Torrette
Supérieur), Didier Gerbelle**, Elio Ottin**
(Torrette Supérieur), Feudo di San Maurizio**
(Torrette Supérieur), Les Crêtes** (Torrette),
Di Barrò* (Torrette Supérieur Vigne de Tor-
rette, in which the effects of air-drying grapes
are evident, perhaps too much, with a creamy,
residual sugar-like fi nish), Chateau Feuillet*,
and La Source*.
Picolit
where it's found:
FVG.
national registry
code number:
188.
color:
white.
Luigi Veronelli, Italy's greatest wine writer,
called picolit Italy's noblest wine: not Barolo,
not Brunello, but picolit. I agree, with caveats.
Dare I say it? Along with Nebbiolo, Picolit is my
favorite Italian grape. Friulian on the maternal
side, I spent many summers in what Joyce
would have defi ned as my salad days, walking
the
ponca,
the marly-arenaceous soil typical of
the Colli Orientali del Friuli (COF) where Pico-
lit thrives. And it thrives only there. Whereas
Picolit wines are now being produced in Collio
and other DOCs of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the
wine has really always been associated with
COF, though experimentally minded producers
tried their hand at it in Veneto, Lombardy,
Emilia-Romagna, and Tuscany. It is one of Ita-
ly's oldest native varieties, with offi cial docu-
mentation dating to the twelfth century, though
the most common reference is the 1682 wed-
ding banquet of Alvise Contarini, doge of Ven-
ice, where picolit was one of the wines served.
This brightly golden sweet wine has always
been lauded with hyperbole and praise, both
among lay people (the few who could afford it)
