Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
but some documentation suggests that the two
names refer to different varieties; at present, we
have no way of elucidating this. One producer,
Stefanoni, even decided to call his wine
Roscetto. In northeastern Lazio and southwest-
ern Umbria, they call the variety Roscetto, but
others there also speak of Rossetto, so I don't
know what to think. Prosperi (1939) mentions
Rossetto as a synonym for the Castelli Romani's
Trebbiano Giallo, probably only adding to the
confusion. Stefanoni also considers Trebbiano
Giallo a synonym for Rossetto. Growers in the
Castelli Romani and Cori areas don't agree at
all, however, fi rmly standing behind their Treb-
biano Giallo as the only original one. In the
absence of DNA profi ling and accurate, believ-
able ampelographic descriptions, your guess is
almost as good as mine. Even better, Rossetto is
at times called Greco Giallo or Greco di Velletri,
though Muganu, Dangl, Aradhya, Frediani,
Scossa, and Stover (2009) showed Rossetto to
be completely unrelated to Greco or Greco
Bianco. In fact, it's almost certainly unrelated
to the Greco Giallo I have seen in the Castelli
Romani and Cori countryside, as the two have
nothing in common, at least morphologically.
and yellow fruit aromas and fl avors. Both are
good, a case of different strokes for different
folks, but I'd be lying to you if, based on these
two wines, I told you what a Rossetto wine is
really supposed to taste like.
wines to try:
Falesco** (Ferentano) and Ste-
fanoni* (Roscetto).
Roussin de Morgex
where it's found:
Valle d'Aosta.
national
registry code number:
not registered.
color:
red.
Once you fi nally manage to come face-to-
face with the rare Roussin de Morgex, you'll
feel like you've been on a thrilling safari. Its
habitat is high up in the Alps, on slopes so steep
that you'll be huffi ng and puffi ng during the
climb; you may very well fi nd yourself wishing
you had gone on an African safari instead. The
moment your gaze falls on the Roussin de
Morgex, however, all your efforts will be
rewarded. You'll immediately recognize the
variety, long on the brink of extinction, for this
extremely pretty grape has highly characteristic
leaves, very jagged, with numerous small
indentations, almost as if someone put them
through a shredder. My memory of fi rst stum-
bling on this variety roughly nine years ago is
vivid, one of the happiest and most meaningful
moments in my many years of walking vine-
yards all over the world. Clearly, DNA profi ling
needs to be done on the plants that have been
identifi ed, but based on ampelographic exami-
nation the grapevines I saw were certainly
Roussin de Morgex.
Not much is known about Roussin de
Morgex, which has always been a bit of a mys-
tery grape. There exists no documentation of it
prior to the latter part of the nineteenth cen-
tury, when it was fi rst mentioned as Rossano
Rosso in the Ampelography Commission's
newsletter of 1877. Already back then it was
believed to grow only in the vineyards of
Morgex, and in very small numbers at that. It is
not related to the similarly named Roussin,
Which Wines to Choose and Why
Wines can be made as IGTs and as DOC Colli
Etruschi Viterbesi. Historically, a little Rossetto
was also added to the Est! Est!! Est!!! di Monte-
fi ascone blend (the exclamation marks are not
typos: this is the exact spelling of the wine).
The irony is that based on Rossetto wine's per-
sonality—big, rich, and tannic—it seems to
have more in common with the
Greco
s than
with the
Trebbiano
s. However, that's not a fair
assessment, as we have too few examples to go
by, mainly the wines made by the Falesco estate
in Umbria. Their version is very rich and tex-
tured, with honeyed tropical-fruit fl avors remi-
niscent of a cross of Chardonnay, Petit
Manseng, and Sauvignon Blanc. Creamy and
delicately oaked, the grapes undergo a fl ash
freeze to help release pigments into the must.
Stefanoni's version is much lighter and fresher,
with less buttery tropical fruit and more fl oral
