Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Ribolla Gialla
quality and common (in Italy) Ribolla Verde
(
verde
means green). Di Rovasenda (1877) and
Zava (1901) both also mentioned a Ribolla
Bianca, but this was most likely another, unre-
lated variety. Also called Rebolla, Ribuèle,
Ràbuele, Ribuèle Zale, Ribolla di Rosazzo, Rai-
bola, Ràbola, and Rèbula, Ribolla Gialla is an
extremely ancient cultivar native to the hills of
Gorizia but also common in nearby Slovenia's
Goriska Brda. In the latter country some call it
Rebula, but this is incorrect, for there are dis-
tinct
Rebula
varieties and
Rebula
biotypes in
Slovenia and Croatia (for example, Rebula,
Rebula Briˇka, and Rebula-Old are homonyms,
not synonyms). In any case, relative to the pos-
sible relationships and similarities of Italian
Ribolla Gialla and Slovenian Rebula (and its
many subvarieties), a recent study revealed that
Ribolla Gialla and Rebula Briˇka share an iden-
tical SSR profi le at eight out of nine loci (Rus-
jan, Jug, and
ˇ
tajner 2010). Ribolla Gialla is
also distinct from both the similarly named
Rébola of the Romagna portion of Emilia-
Romagna, which is identical to Pignoletto, and
from Ribolla Spizade, a synonym for Glera
Lungo. Recently, Crespan, Giannetto,
Meneghetti, Petrussi, Del Zan, and Sivilotti
(2011) proved that Ribolla Gialla is completely
unrelated to Schioppettino, once called Ribolla
Nera.
Ribolla gialla was long considered one of
Italy's greatest wines, and in the thirteenth cen-
tury it was a regular presence on the dining
tables of Venice's nobility. The fi rst mention of
it is in medieval times, in a 1299 deed of sale
written by notary Ermanno di Gemona in
Nota-
riorum joppi
(Filiputti 1983). A legal document
from 1376 concerning a land sale near Barbana
in the Collio specifi ed that the farmer had been
producing
“sex urnas raboli.”
Apparently, 1327
was a poor vintage characterized by low wine
production, especially of Ribolla wine. The
Germans especially loved this wine: so much
that when Trieste was annexed to the Hapsburg
empire, Duke Leopold III of Austria demanded
that “one hundred urns of the best ribolla wine”
be delivered to him annually. In the 1800s,
where it's found:
FVG.
national registry
code number:
208.
color:
white.
Ribolla Gialla presents a modern Italian
wine conundrum. In Italy, the variety grows
only in Friuli Venezia Giulia, and even in this
region it is limited essentially to two DOC
areas, the Colli Orientali del Friuli and the Col-
lio. Grown in fl atland vineyards, it produces a
prodigious number of grapes unless curbed by
ultrarigorous pruning or stress; short of that,
the wine is watery, insipid, and mind-bendingly
acidic. Furthermore, Ribolla Gialla has become
the darling of artistically inclined, experimen-
tally minded producers (who, in my view, must
have far too much free time on their hands) and
have decided to treat this white grape as if it
were a red variety, subjecting it to months of
macerations on the skins, often in porous terra-
cotta amphoras. The resulting wines are red-
dish-amber tinged and often oxidized beyond
redemption (what are now called “orange”
wines). In fairness, this was a very traditional
way of making wine in centuries past (they
have been making wines in this manner in
Georgia for thousands of years) and so such
winemaking methods are intimately linked to
single production areas and are part of local
history. Last but not least, another set of for-
ward-thinking Friuli producers have, at least
this time not illogically, decided that Ribolla
Gialla's naturally high acidity makes it a perfect
candidate for sparkling wine production, and
with Prosecco's economic and popular success
dead in their sights, have proceeded to churn
out hectoliter after hectoliter of sparkling ribol-
las of often dubious complexity and interest.
After all that, a small percentage of diehards
are still treating Ribolla Gialla the way it was
meant to be, making a dry white wine. These
wines are immensely popular, the ones that
people clamor for and actually buy, though the
sparkling versions have been gaining in
popularity.
The
giallo
(yellow) adjective in the name
Ribolla Gialla is important, as there is a lesser
