Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
production zone, and not just in Italy. According
to recent genetic testing, however, Piedmont's
Favorita and western Liguria's Pigato appear to
be biotypes of Vermentino, rather than distinct
varieties. Still, many growers who have worked
with the varieties for decades (especially Pigato)
remain unconvinced. Some insist that Pigato is
its own grape, arriving on Ligurian shores from
Spain by way of Corsica, though this is also
unclear, because existing documentation from
the nineteenth century apparently never men-
tions the name Pigato (reinforcing the notion
that Pigato evolved later). The name Pigato
derives from the local dialect word
pigau,
mean-
ing “spotted,” or from the Latin word
picatum,
meaning “aromatized with bitumen.” Appar-
ently, Sardinia's Vermentino di Alghero and
Vermentino di Gallura are also just biotypes,
distant relatives of a rare local variety called
Bianca Antica. And it doesn't get any easier in
southern France, where Vermentino is known
as Rolle (Nice), Verlantin (Antibe), Malvoise à
Gros Grains (Midi), and Malvasia Grossa or
Carbesso (Corsica). Of course, this wouldn't be
Italy if Rollo, despite its very
Rolle
-like name,
ends up being not Vermentino but an ancient
local variety known as Bruciapagliao.
In the past, unavailability of genetic testing
and the shortcomings of ampelographic recog-
nition made it diffi cult to differentiate between
the three and led to Vermentino, Favorita, and
Pigato all being included in the National Regis-
try as separate varieties. Nowadays, most
experts agree this was an error. Already in
1990, Schneider and Mannini had identifi ed
the latter two as biotypes of the former (on the
basis of ampelographic descriptors), results
confi rmed by other studies; and accurate his-
torical research revealed that, at the turn of the
twentieth century, Favorita had been grown in
Piedmont (near Alba, Mondovì, and Cuneo)
and Pigato in the province of Savona. Subse-
quent microsatellite analysis has confi rmed the
three to be synonyms and not distinct entities
(Botta, Scott, Eynard, and Thomas 1995). The
grape we call Favorita is grown exclusively in
Piedmont around the Roero region and is
thought to have arrived there more than three
hundred years ago via Ligurian oil merchants.
It is known for having large berries and has
been a popular table grape for many years,
which many credit for its name, Favorita. When
it was used for wine, historically it was blended
with Nebbiolo in an effort to smooth over some
of that variety's rough edges. Varietal wines
made from Favorita have enjoyed some success
recently, but plantings lag well behind those of
Arneis and Chardonnay in the Langhe. Many
U.S. examples of Favorita wine are slightly
spritzy, though I'm not sure how prevalent that
style is elsewhere.
With Vermentino, nothing is easy: its origin
is also clouded in mystery. Is it a true Italian
native, or was it imported from Spain? Or did
Vermentino travel in the opposite direction, from
Italy to Spain? Still other luminaries are certain
that the variety was transported suitcase-style
into the Mediterranean basin from the Orient by
sailors and merchants. Strangely enough, Ver-
mentino is not mentioned in the 1877
Bollettino
ampelografi co
of Sardinian varieties, while Cetto-
lini does mention it less than ten years later.
For all of the uncertainties that surround
this variety, on one point all agree: Vermentino
is an excellent variety from which great wines
can be made, and it is of real economic impor-
tance for the many families involved in its cul-
tivation and wine production. In fact, Vermen-
tino has always enjoyed good press: Gallesio
([1817] 1839) (who didn't make it any easier on
us by calling it Vernaccia di Corniglia) wrote
that the wine was the favorite of Genoa and
much sought after in the nineteenth century.
This explains why plantings of Vermentino
have increased steadily for the last hundred
years. For example, whereas it represented just
1 percent of total grape varieties grown on Sar-
dinia early in the twentieth century and covered
only 1,366 hectares on Sardinia in the 1960s,
today more than 3,300 hectares of Vermentino
are planted on the island (or 12 percent of all
grape varieties planted there). Growers have
fi fteen offi cial clones to choose from (selected
from populations in Sardinia, Tuscany, Liguria,
