Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
THREE
Grape Groups and Families
The following groups
and families
include some of Italy's best-known grapes,
hence its best-known wines. You will easily rec-
ognize the grapes within each group or family
(for example Greco, Greco Giallo, and Greco
Nero): these cultivars share the same basic
name because they were thought to be related.
In fact, these century-old assumptions are,
more often than not, erroneous: thanks to
ongoing advances in DNA profi ling, we have
very recently learned that some of these simi-
larly named grapes are completely unrelated.
However, for simplicity's sake I have chosen to
leave them grouped together, so in this topic
you'll fi nd all the various
Greco
s,
Lambrusco
s
,
Malvasia
s,
Trebbiano
s, and others described in
the same chapter.
What's more, because many of these grapes
share essentially similar century-old histories
and have been so traditionally and intimately
attached to specifi c regions and viticultural
areas, they are still referred to by their original
names, out of habit and tradition. For example,
nobody outside academic circles will ever refer
to the Greco Bianco variety of Calabria as Mal-
vasia di Lipari, the grape variety it has been
recently proven to be. For locals and wine lovers
everywhere, it's still Greco Bianco, and when in
Calabria, you'll receive nothing but stern looks
or condescending smiles should you refer to the
variety by any other name. If you're lucky, that
is: you may instead end up sitting through a
good hour or more (sometimes, a lot more) of
explanations as to why you, and the scientists,
have it all wrong. Charmingly, these local, pas-
sionate grape growers and winemakers might
also feel the need to call over relatives and
friends who are “in the know” (this is Italy,
after all, and everybody's got quite a few of
those) to further reinforce their arguments.
Trust me: been there, done that.
For the simple reason that some varieties
included in this chapter may be more or less
related, I use either the word
group
or the word
family
to unite them. When I speak of a grape
group, it's because group members are so unre-
lated that speaking of a family is impossible, as
for example in the case of the
Vernaccia
s, grape
varieties that only have the name Vernaccia
in common. Other times, there are enough
