Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Mocasina—honestly, I fi nd many producers
have no clue as to which Groppello they are
growing. Costaripa makes a monovarietal
Groppello Gentile with their excellent Castel-
line bottling. The grand cru for the Garda area,
relative to Groppello Gentile, is Valtènesi (in
the heart of Garda Classico) with light, sandy,
gravelly soils that do not allow for water reten-
tion and therefore offer conditions in which
Groppello Gentile can thrive. As Groppello
Gentile has bigger berries than the other Grop-
pello s, it is the one most often used for rosato
and light red wine production.
be had too; and not just lip-smackingly deli-
cious dry lambrusco rosso and rosato, but great
sweet ones too. Wine snobs will sneer at the lat-
ter wines, but I don't see the problem: if some
fetishists prize fruitiness and sweetness in
their wines above all else, who am I to argue?
And besides, I like those sweet wines too.
The Lambrusco s may well be Italy's oldest
family of native grape varieties, comprising
many members that give similar yet ultimately
distinct wines. Lambrusco s have nothing to do
with Vitis labrusca, which is a native North
American grapevine; in fact, there exists evi-
dence that the Etruscans were domesticating
vines centuries before Rome was born, though
more cogent documentation dates to centuries
later, when Cato writes in De agri cultura that
labrusca are those wild vine varieties that grow
spontaneously from seeds. In relatively more
modern times, Pier de' Crescenzi, in his thir-
teenth-century Ruralium Commodorum Librim
Duodecim cites a wine made from lambrusca.
However, the fi rst to mention “Lambrusco” as a
specifi c grape variety instead of a generic
domesticated wild grape was Bacci in 1596. In
the seventeenth century records attest to as
many as fi fty “ labrusca” varieties, a tally reduced
to twenty-three by Molon in 1906 (one of which
was a white grape). These were later reduced to
ten red grapes by Cosmo and Polsinelli in 1962.
The most recent studies by Calò, Costacurta,
and Scienza (2001) speak of only eight closely
related but different Lambrusco varieties, so the
Lambrusco s can be considered a family. Accord-
ing to Emilio Sereni in 1986, the term Lam-
brusco may stem from the paleoligurian prefi x
lap- or lab-, meaning rock or stone (as in rupe,
in Italian, or rupestris ) . Another, less likely,
derivation is from the Latin labrum, meaning
lip or edge, as in the edge of the woods where
wild grape varieties like to grow.
Lambrusco varieties are mainly grown in
Emilia-Romagna, but are also found in Lom-
bardy, Trentino, Veneto, and Puglia. However,
they have always been, and are still today,
mainly associated with Emilia-Romagna: in
fact Molon (1906) proposed that the name
wines to try: For Garda, try : Cantrina***
(Groppello Garda Classico), Costaripa*** (Cas-
telline, light and fresh, a pure Groppello Gentile,
and Maim, richer and velvety; this estate owns
vines that are close to fi fty years old and it shows),
Comincioli**, Le Chiusure**, Zuliani**,
Civielle*, and Pasini-San Giovanni* (Riserva
Vigneto Arzane, a blend of Groppello Gentile
and Groppello di Mocasina).
THE LAMBRUSCO FAMILY
The Lambrusco family of grapes and wines
could do with better public relations, as their
image is tarnished in most fi ne-wine drinking
circles; fairly enough too, as these varieties are
behind a collection of not very distinguished
wines. On www.truelambrusco.com, Lidia Bas-
tianich, the famous chef and restaurant owner,
is quoted as saying that “Lambruscos have been
misrepresented by industrial versions that have
the soda pop fl avors they think Americans
might want.” On the same site, one of the best
food and wine writers in America, John Mari-
ani, expresses a similar thought: “Prior to June
2012, I had never ordered a bottle of lambrusco
in Italy; with memories of those sweet, fi zzy,
soda-like imports of the 1970s, I had no interest
in revisiting such wines, even in Emilia-
Romagna, where lambrusco is made.” After all
that, you couldn't be blamed for thinking that
Lambrusco s and lambruscos were best forgot-
ten, but there are thrilling Lambrusco wines to
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