Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Rheinhessen. And much like many intellectu-
als you might know, these are sometimes best
taken in small doses. There is no denying the
intensely mineral and herbal aromas and fl a-
vors of these wines, and the lesser examples
can be too much of a good thing and a taste one
needs to acquire. Still, the excitement about
Timorasso and its wines is palpable, since the
best wines really are some of Italy's most
unique, interesting white wines. The fact is,
Timorasso has only resurfaced to international
attention recently, and this thanks to the initial
efforts of Walter Massa, a wine producer of the
Colli Tortonesi area in southeastern Piedmont
who basically brought Timorasso back from
oblivion all by himself. The exact measure of
just how unknown Timorasso was for most of
the twentieth century is that there is no men-
tion of it in Nicholas Belfrage's excellent
Barolo
to Valpolicella,
fi rst published in 1999; only Dol-
cetto, Barbera, and Cortese are mentioned
when the Colli Tortonesi is very briefl y dis-
cussed, but understandably so, as back then
Timorasso's time had not yet come.
Found in southern Piedmont and to a small
extent in southern Lombardy, Timorasso (or
Timuasso, as it is known in the local dialect)
was once grown in Liguria, where it was consid-
ered a very good table grape. Timorasso was
once the most commonly grown white variety
of Piedmont, along with Cortese, and was used
to produce
torbolino,
a vinous product that was
exported to Switzerland and Germany. Legend
has it that even Leonardo da Vinci liked Timo-
rasso wines, so much so that his gifts at Isa-
bella di Aragona's wedding were the Monte-
bore, an ancient cheese of the area, and a bottle
of white wine, the
timuràs,
which was suppos-
edly the best possible match for that cheese.
Past ampelographers, including De Maria and
Leardi (1875) and Di Rovasenda (1877), all doc-
umented that Timorasso was a noble variety.
Studies have suggested that Timorasso is
genetically identical to Carica L'asino, but as the
latter is a name given to many varieties all over
Italy this identifi cation means little, as there is
a true Carica L'asino variety that is distinct
from Timorasso. Instead, a recent study using
microsatellites to analyze several grapes from
Piedmont, all named Lambrusca or Lam-
brusco, showed fi rst-degree parentage relation-
ships between Lambruschetto and Timorasso,
while the
Lambrusco
s from Emilia-Romagna
were genetically distant (Torello Marinoni, Rai-
mondi, Boccacci, and Schneider 2006).
Timorasso is very easy to recognize, since it
has berries of different sizes within the same
bunch, usually also at different stages of ripe-
ness: asynchronous maturation of the berries is
one of the reasons this variety is a pain to grow
and that making great wine from it is diffi cult.
It also suffers from fl oral abortion, with many
fl owers never bearing fruit. The berries also
fall off the vine very easily, not a good thing in
windy conditions. Furthermore, it is very thin
skinned and easily falls prey to grey rot, so it is
very important to work in the vineyards to dis-
tance the bunches and shoots, and avoiding
humid or scarcely ventilated locations is key.
When global warming wasn't an issue, the vari-
ety also never ripened well, or did so late in the
fall season, another no-no in the eyes of farm-
ers. For these reasons, Timorasso cultivation
had been abandoned: its production was too
irregular and the variety too diffi cult to grow
for farmers to bother in times when wines
(some, at least) did not fetch today's high prices.
Which Wines to Choose and Why
Today, Timorasso's acreage is reduced com-
pared to the pre-phylloxera age, when it rivaled
Cortese as the most common white variety in
Piedmont. Now, Timorasso is associated mainly
if not only with the Colli Tortonesi, but more
precisely, it is especially abundant in the north-
ern, mountainous part of this DOC (whereas
Barbera and Dolcetto are more common in the
southern part). The northern Colli Tortonesi
area is made up of a series of valleys: Val
Curone, Val Grue, Val Ossona, Val Borbera, and
Val Spinti are characterized by their unique
wine production (it's not only Timorasso that
thrives here; another, rarer native, Lambrusca
di Alessandria, does too). Viticulture and wine-
