Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
What recent studies show is that a southern
Italian birthplace for Sangiovese is possible:
Sicily and Calabria seem to be likely prospects,
as we know that since the sixteenth century at
least, there were exchanges of cultivars between
southern Italian regions and the rest of Italy:
for example, according to Basso (1982), Vernac-
cia di Siracusa (both a black and a white grape),
probably originating from Syracuse in Sicily,
was cultivated in Tuscany; while varieties such
as Inzolia (a Sicilian native) and Trebbiano
Toscano are common to both Sicily and Tus-
cany. Therefore, some experts hypothesize that
Sangiovese originated from crossings in south-
ern Italy, rather than from Tuscany or other
central Italian regions, and was later trans-
ferred north. However, the fi ndings that San-
giovese shares at least a small part of its genetic
makeup with local wild Tuscan grapevines, and
the lack of clear documentation reporting San-
giovese's presence in southern Italy centuries
ago, provide food for thought. Once again, San-
giovese has left us in a quandary.
most interesting from a viticultural and eno-
logical perspective.
The simplest and best-known classifi cation
of Sangiovese biotypes, now hopelessly out-
dated, divides the cultivar into two main bio-
types, Sangiovese Grosso and Sangiovese Pic-
colo. The former has always been associated
with the Sangiovese or Brunello grown in Mon-
talcino, but matters are far more complicated;
for instance, there also exists a Sangiovese Pic-
colo of Montalcino that seemingly few have
ever heard of or written about. According to
early studies, the majority of Tuscan and
Romagna Sangiovese biotypes—including
Brunello, Prugnolo Gentile, Sangiovese Grosso
di Lamole, Sangiovese Montanino, Sangiovese
Romagnolo, Sangiovese Marchigiano, and Niel-
luccio—are of the Sangiovese Grosso biotype,
while Sanvicetro (again, now known to be a
variety distinct from Sangiovese), Sangiovese
Piccolo di Montalcino, and Morellino are of the
Sangiovese Piccolo biotype (Silvestroni and
Intrieri 1995; Calò, Costacurta, Paludetti, Cres-
pan, Giusti, Egger, et al. 1995). Except Sanvice-
tro, all have been confi rmed as genetically iden-
tical to Sangiovese, though they look and
behave slightly differently due to usually minor
phenotypic differences, probably because of
environmental and human selection pressures
exerted over centuries. Hence, as Prugnolo
Gentile and Brunello both share a genetic pro-
fi le with Sangiovese, they must all be consid-
ered the same. However, both Prugnolo Gentile
and Brunello are still mistakenly described as
different cultivars in the National Registry, as
well as in topics and websites devoted to the
subject of Italy's native grapes.
In contrast, not all the
Morellino
s are identi-
cal: different
Morellino
s are qualifi ed by suf-
fixes such as Pizzuto, di Pitigliano, del
Valdarno, and del Casentino, but Morellino Piz-
zuto is most likely a distinct cultivar from San-
giovese (Scalabrelli and Grasselli 1985). In
2000, Scalabrelli, Vignani, Scali, Di Pietro,
Materazzi, and Triolo suggested that Morellino
Pizzuto was a biotype of Sangiovese, one that
exhibited both ampelographic and genetic dif-
The Extended “Family” of Sangiovese
and Similarly Named Grapes
Sangiovese's high intravarietal diversity has
been well documented, and because of this
widespread difference in phenotypes among
Sangiovese grapevines, these and other experts
postulated that Sangiovese is not a single vari-
ety but a “variety-population,” the result of poly-
clonal inheritance (Vignani, Scali, Masi, and
Cresti 2002; Filippetti, Intrieri, Centinari, Buc-
chetti, and Pastore 2005). This is a minority
hypothesis nowadays, with most experts believ-
ing that a single parent pair is at the origin of
Sangiovese, as demonstrated for practically all
other grape cultivars. Marzotto (1925),
Breviglieri and Casini (1965), and many others
have confi rmed the great variability of Sangio-
vese grapevines due to the presence of subpop-
ulations more or less easily distinguished,
especially by berry dimensions and leaf
characteristics. These many biotypes are cur-
rently the subject of study, the aim being to
identify those individuals that might prove
