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of wine. Therefore a sugary and fi zzy wine will
be pushing the aromatic envelope to the fullest,
and placing its variety's main selling point
front and center.
Happily, advances in molecular biology
allow us to tackle the classifi cation of Malvasia
varieties somewhat more accurately than in the
past, and independently of aromatic profi les.
Numerous university studies have recently
broached the origin and parentage of Malvasia
varieties, sometimes with truly surprising
results. First, microsatellite studies performed
by Crespan, Cabello, Giannetto, Ibanez, Karo-
glan Kontic, Maletic, Pejic, Rodriguez, and
Antonacci (2006a) have demonstrated there is
very little genetic affi nity between the Malvasia
vines of Italy and grapes of Greece, including
Greek Malvasia s. Crespan's group compared
the information available from the Greek Vitis
database (http://www.biology.uoc.gr/gvd) and
from Lefort and Roubelakis-Angelakis (2000),
which gave molecular profi les for four Malvasia
cultivars they called Malvasia del Chianti, Mal-
vazia di Candia, Malvazia Aromatica, and Mal-
vazia Istriana. None of these was consistent
with the genotype described by Crespan's
group. A more general search in the Greek
database by Crespan, Crespan, Giannetto,
Meneghetto, and Costacurta (2007) also failed
to show any similarities between their data
compared to that published by Lefort and
Roubelakis-Angelakis (2002) relative to Greek
cultivars.
Therefore, the commonly held belief that
many Italian varieties were brought over from
Greece by seafaring traders and merchants
does not appear to be correct! In fact, the Mal-
vasia wines of Greece were made with varieties
such as Athiri, Kydonitsa, Liatiko, Thrapsathiri,
and Vilana, which to the best of my knowledge
have never been grown (or only minimally so)
in Italy. Of all the various Malvasia-Something
grapes, most are completely unrelated, but
those that are related to a degree include Malva-
sia Bianca Lunga, Malvasia Istriana (Malvazija
Istarska), and Malvasia di Lipari (these three
Malvasia varieties have been shown to have
close genetic ties to each other by Lacombe,
Boursiquot, Laoucou, Dechesne, Varès, and
This in 2007), as well as Malvasia Nera di
Brindisi, a red-berried Malvasia shown to be
the result of a natural crossing between Malva-
sia Bianca Lunga and Negro Amaro (Crespan,
Colleta, Crupi, Giannetto, and Antonacci
2008). At our current state of knowledge, these
four make up something close to a Malvasia
“family.” However, there are simply too many
different grapes named Malvasia to consider
them all a family, extended or otherwise.
THE WHITE-BERRIED MALVASIAS
Malvasia Bianca
where it's found: Puglia, Campania, Cala-
bria, Sicily. national registry code number:
129. color: white.
This is another confusing grape, as little is
known about it. It's the typical white Malvasia
associated with the wines of Puglia (the region
is also home to two red Malvasia varieties),
where historically a Malvasia Bianca di Trani
was known to grow. Other experts have postu-
lated that the Malvasia Bianca of Puglia is the
same as Malvasia Moscata of Piedmont; the lat-
ter grape had virtually disappeared at the end of
the nineteenth century due to its extreme sen-
sitivity to oidium. The hypothesis was that Mal-
vasia Moscata was packed away suitcase-style
and transported to Puglia by people moving
there. There is no documentation or research
data to support his view, and I point out that in
Italy almost all immigration fl ows were usually
the other way around, from poorer south to
richer north. Interestingly, the offi cial descrip-
tion in the National Registry of Malvasia Bianca
is from a Piedmontese source, but the variety is
not offi cially listed for use in any Piedmontese
DOC or IGT wines, and only appears in Pug-
lian appellations. And yet, the ampelographic
description of Malvasia Bianca in the National
Registry is very similar, almost identical in fact,
to that of Malvasia Moscata. However, while
both the Malvasia Moscata typical of Piedmont
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