Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
and Riviera del Garda Bresciano Rosso or Chi-
aretto wines. Get ready: 30 to 60 percent
Grop-
pello
(Gentile, Groppellone, and Mocasina), 10
to 25 percent Sangiovese, 5 to 30 percent
Marzemino or Berzemino, 10 to 20 percent
Barbera, plus up to 10 percent of any other non-
aromatic red grape variety. They're only miss-
ing the kitchen sink.
IGT, but the word “Breganze” is printed in
small lettering on the label below the words
Indicazione Geografi ca Tipica.
This is interest-
ing, since Breganze is a DOC in Italy, not an
IGT wine—I guess what they mean is that it is
a Groppello di Breganze wine.
wines to try:
For Groppello di Breganze (actu-
ally Pignola Nera), try: Firmino Miotti** and
Col Dovigo**. For Groppello dei Berici, to the
best of my knowledge, there is no monovarietal
wine made yet with this variety.
Groppello dei Berici and Groppello
di Breganze
Two more
Groppello-
named varieties have
recently been discovered, grown respectively in
Veneto's Colli Berici and Breganze areas, and
called, appropriately enough, Groppello dei
Berici and Groppello di Breganze. Though the
two are distinct from the other three
Groppello
s
(and the Groppellone biotype), genetic profi l-
ing by Cancellier, Giannetto, and Crespan
(2009) has proved that what is routinely called
Groppello di Breganze, which appeared to
share considerable morphologic similarities
with Groppello di Revò, is in fact identical to
Pignola Nera. Groppello dei Berici, by contrast,
is a true
Groppello
and has a pentagonal leaf; a
small, winged, stocky bunch; and very small
round berries. Its budbreak falls later in the
season than that of all other
Groppello
s, and it
apparently accumulates less sugar. Like all
Groppello
varieties, its very compact bunch
makes it sensitive to botrytis.
Groppello di Mocasina
where it's found:
Lombardy.
national reg-
istry code number:
102 (and, as Groppello di
Santo Stefano, number 103 as well).
color:
red.
Groppello di Mocasina is easily differenti-
ated from all other
Groppello
s because of the
downy undersurface of its leaves (hence the
synonym Groppello Molinèr, from
mulinare,
in
reference to mills and fl our), and the fact that
the cluster is almost never winged. Groppello
di Mocasina is also easy to distinguish from the
other
Groppello
s because it has the smallest
bunches and berries of all. A rather vigorous
variety, it can easily produce one hundred hec-
toliters per hectare, far too high for quality wine
production, so its vigor needs to be reined in.
For this reason, it does poorly with very vigor-
ous rootstocks, such as the old Golia rootstock
once commonly used in Italy. It is especially
sensitive to magnesium and potassium defi -
ciencies of the soil, as well as to botrytis bunch
rot. It's best planted on hillsides on poor, rocky
soils that allow for good water drainage.
Which Wines to Choose and Why
To the best of my knowledge there is nobody
making a monovarietal wine from Groppello
dei Berici. As for Groppello di Breganze, the
wines to look for are those made with the
Pignola variety, though Firmino Miotti bottles
a monovarietal wine he calls “Groppello” and
continues to call the grape variety used to make
it Groppello di Breganze, not Pignola Nera (see
PIGNOLA, chapter 4). Interestingly, Cantina
Col Dovigo produces a wine named “Grop-
pello,” though it doesn't specify which Grop-
pello variety is used, but they have told me it is
in fact Groppello di Breganze. The wine is an
Which Wines to Choose and Why
In my experience, wines that are pure Groppello
di Mocasina tend to be more vegetal or herbal
than monovarietal Groppello Gentile wines, but
this may be a function of yields. Historically
Groppello di Mocasina was always blended with
other varieties such as Barbera, Sangiovese, and
Marzemino (though not necessarily Groppello
