Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
century. Today there are only thirteen hectares
cultivated near Sassari and in the Gallura, in
the northeast corner of the island. The rare
Orrotozau variety is a biotype, and no clones
are available. It is unrelated to the Brustiniau of
Corsica, as was initially hypothesized by Bruni.
Terre), it is commonly referred to as Bruciapa-
gliaio. In Corsica they refer to it as Pagadebiti
and around Massa Carrara as Livornese Bianca.
It is most often found in white wines of the
DOC Polcevera. The bunch is large, conical-
pyramidal, stocky, and compact. The berry is
large and round, slightly elongated, and thick
skinned. Harvest is in the fi rst two weeks of
October; it's an abundant but irregular
producer.
Ripoli
where it's found:
Campania.
national reg-
istry code number:
386.
color:
white.
Ripoli is also called Ripolo or Uva Ripoli; the
only description of any kind of this variety until
recently was that of Arcuri and Casoria in 1883,
though Di Rovasenda mentioned it in 1877.
Viala and Vermorel included it in their famous
Ampélographie
of 1901-1909. Though once
common around Naples, today it's grown
almost exclusively along the Amalfi coast in the
idyllic surroundings of Positano, Amalfi , and
Furore. The bunch is small and sparse with two
conical wings. It suffers from fl oral sterility, so
the berries are not uniform in size, and are gen-
erally small, round, and thin skinned. It is most
likely to be found in the white DOC Costa
d'Amalfi . It is a poor and very irregular pro-
ducer, but the wine is excellent, and my hope is
that more producers will plant it and try their
hand at a monovarietal wine. There are some
lovely honeyed notes to pure ripoli, but very few
producers have enough to harvest and make
wine from it alone, so it's usually just lumped
together with other local varieties such as
Fenile and Ginestra.
Rondinella
where it's found:
Veneto.
national regis-
try code number:
212.
color:
red.
Rondinella is another of the many bird-
grapes of Italy: its name refers either to the dark
color of the berry skin (black as the plumage of
the small swallow,
rondine
) or to the fact that
these small birds are happy to feast on the ripe
grapes. It is somewhat surprising that we have
no documentation prior to 1882 about a grape
that is so well known today in Veneto, and one
that presents few if any problems to farmers
and growers. Then again, Rondinella's explo-
sion onto the Italian grape and wine scene
occurred after the arrival of phylloxera; it repre-
sents an interesting example of how some vari-
eties have been improved by the graft with
American rootstocks (while others, like Malbec
in France, suffered greatly). So it is quite pos-
sible that a grape variety that was once boring
and uninteresting has become more interesting
and useful. Or perhaps the lack of Rondinella
documentation is due to it being only a late
arrival to Veneto, where farmers were previ-
ously using the Negrara varieties in its place.
This cultivar is very easy to recognize when
walking through any vineyard in Valpolicella,
not just because of its characteristic leaf but
especially because of its small, slightly curved,
very compact bunch and round, medium-sized
berries. With Rondinella, there are no big dis-
organized bunches
à la Corvinone,
no scrawny
bunches like Corvina, no pink berries like
Molinara. Rondinella is loved by farmers for its
hardy nature, great resistance to cold and
Rollo
where it's found:
Liguria.
national regis-
try code number:
211.
color:
white.
Rollo should not be confused with Rolle,
which is typical of southern France and is a
synonym of Vermentino; Rollo was long
thought to be Vermentino or a biotype of it. It
grows on both sides of Liguria: on the western
side (in Riviera Ligure di Ponente and around
Genoa) it goes by Rollo; on the eastern side (in
Riviera Ligure di Levante and the Cinque
