Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In keeping with the notion that grapes with
colored pulps give wines of inferior quality,
Bernardo Gondi believes that wines made with
Colorino
s with colored pulps give wines that
have more rustic tannins and age less well.
However, as producers often own a mix of
Colorino
s in their vineyards, not all Colorino
wines taste alike. Anyone who knows Italian
wines even a little will never mistake, even tast-
ing them blind, monovarietal wines or those
made with heavy doses of Alicante Bouschet for
wines containing mainly Abrusco or Colorino
del Valdarno. Wines made with Alicante Bou-
schet are unabashed fruit bombs, while those
made with Abrusco and Colorino del Valdarno
are much more tannic and herbal. In the end,
to say
sic et simpliciter
that there is
Colorino
in
the blend means very little—particularly
because sometimes people speak of
Colorino
s
and really mean completely different varieties
such as Granoir and Giacchè, which have
aroma and f lavor profiles even more far
removed from the four basic Colorino varieties.
That said, a wine containing any of the
Colori-
no
s (Colorino di Pisa and/or Alicante Bouschet
excepted) will unfailingly remind you of Caber-
net Sauvignon or Petit Verdot, though without
the complexity of the former and the perfume
of the latter. Attilio Pagli, star consultant wine-
maker and cofounder of the MATURA group of
winemakers and viticulturalists, fi nds that
Colorino
wines remind him of those made with
Ancellotta, another native coloring variety, with
the difference that “
Colorino
wines, though
they may lack complexity, are more elegant.”
Emiliano Falsini, a winemaker with the MAT-
URA group, notes that “with their at times
gamey and peppery aromas, wines made with
Colorino del Valdarno can remind you of
Syrah.” However, he cautions that due to the
Colorino
s' wealth of polyphenols, wines made
with it tend to reduce easily (reduction is what
causes many wines to smell weedy or musty).
For this reason, with
Colorino
s he likes to use
winemaking techniques (such as rack and
return or frequent pumping over) that favor
plenty of air contact with the must. “If you
aren't careful, the reduced aromas form quickly
and once present they are very hard to remove,”
he warns. Since color is very easy to achieve
with
Colorino
s, Falsini also believes that long
skin-to-juice contact is not necessary with this
variety: “Pigments leach out quickly, so seven-
to ten-day macerations are all you need to get a
fairly dark-hued wine; anything longer than
that, and you risk pulling out green, hard tan-
nins.” Still, a well-made colorino from a good
biotype can be a very interesting discovery for
all those tired of the usual aromas and fl avors
of the cabernet-merlot-syrah set. Colorino
wines rarely have profound complexity, but are
full-bodied, structured, and match well with
hearty foods. They all share inky colors, a big,
structured, viscous mouthfeel, and aromas and
fl avors of small dark berries, licorice, black-
berry jam and especially menthol and herbs,
such as juniper berries and sage. A word of cau-
tion: since the
Colorino
s are usually late-ripen-
ing varieties, vintage really does count with
Colorino
wines. In rainy, cool years, the wines
will almost always smell and taste green.
wines to try:
Montenidoli*** (How owner
Elisabetta Fagiuoli manages to make a smooth,
velvety and even charming colorino is beyond
me, but then, witness her outstanding Vernac-
cia di San Gimignano wines), Poggiopiano***
(Taffetà: The dynamic duo of Dini and Pagli
never fail), Casabianca**, Fattoria di Piaz-
zano**, Marchesi Pancrazi** (Casaglia), and
Tenuta Il Corno** (Colorino del Corno). These
very good, at times outstanding, wines really
are more than the sum of their colorful parts.
THE GRECO GROUP
Along with the
Malvasia
s, the
Greco
s may be
the most confusing of all grapes. That alone
would seem to make them eminently Italian,
but in reality, the
Greco
s are for the most part
Greek imports. Which, given Greece's similar-
ity to Italy where the love of organized chaos
is concerned, is just as appropriate. Indeed, it
has always been thought that many of these
