Been reading thru the Chapter on Grape Groups & Families. It’s a tough slog.
Ian takes varios families/groups of grapes and discusses the in detail. Gropello/Malvasia/Greco/Lambrusco/etc.
Within in each group, there will be a Greco di Tufo, Greco di X, Greco di Y, Greco di Z, Greco Bianco, Greco Nera, etc. Oftentimes the
various grape varieties have no relationship to each other…they just acquired that name when some peasant farmer decided to call it that.
After I read one of the sections on a particular grape family…my head is left swimming…how am I gonna keep them all separate.
The take-away message from this chapter is that the grape naming convention in Itayl is very chaotic and anarchistic.
Sorta like the whole friggin’ Gummint there. But you gotta love 'em.
Tom
Sort of like crljenak kaštelanski/tribidrag/primitivo being called in zinfandel in California. Or Tokai/tokay d’Alsace/malvoisie/vermentino/canari noir.
These grape growers are like local criminal bands with their own code language who switch all the nouns regularly to fool the outsiders.
Sort of like crljenak kaštelanski/tribidrag/primitivo being called in zinfandel in California. Or Tokai/tokay d’Alsace/malvoisie/vermentino/canari noir.
These grape growers are like local criminal bands with their own code language who switch all the nouns regularly to fool the outsiders.
The section on Malvasia in this chapter is particularly interesting. I’ve always thought Malvasia was sort of a toned-down Muscat, mostly
from the ones I’ve had from Calif. It’s sorta puzzled me that the Friuli versions (Malvasia di Istria) don’t seem to show any Muscat character.
Well…in the family of Malvasia…some are aromatic, some non-aromatic. The Istrian version is more non-aromatic.
Turns out he’s convinced that Calif MalvasiaBianca is not the true Italian version of MalvasiaBianca because of its strong aromatics.
He’s convinced that it’s Piemontese Malvasia Moscato. It’s very strong in the terpenes linalool & geraniol. Linalool is the primary
smell you get from Muscats.
On to the lengthy Muscat section. Looks even more confusing.
This is a pretty interesting article on slight side note to this. I like some of the Cal-Ital whites. I have two problems, first being that the wines are slightly off to me. I come from the Italian side of the wines. I only know this way to look at it since I have been drinking the Italian version of the wines for 25 years. And the other problem is the price. Many of the Cali options are 25-30% higher in price. Maybe others are interested in the piece.
BTW, while I haven’t tried to tackle the grape groups/families section that Tom Hill referred to earlier (and may not, after his commentary ), the main section of the book is a simple grape by grape listing in alphabetical order, and I find it both eminently readable and chock full of interesting tidbits.
The one clear downside to this book is that it will prove to be far more expensive than it’s cover price - I’ve already ordered 6 bottles of Gulfi wines after reading Ian’s discussion on the Calabrese grape (Nero d’Avola), and I can see that kind of thing happening a lot once I start to seriously dig into this thing.
As an aside, I love that we now have a number of very knowledgeable writers covering Italian wine (Ian d’Agata, Kerin O’Keefe, Monica Larner). This was not always true…
I think what d’Agata is doing is clearly laying out a confusing subject, Tom, rather than creating confusion.
The big confusion in Italian grape names is the fact that many entirely unrelated grape varieties have the same name, and this is why he talks about ‘groups’ (mostly unrelated) and ‘families’ (some genetic relationship).
Years ago I will admit that I drank a Lugana and thought ‘wow, this is really good wine, I can’t believe it’s made of Trebbiano.’ Well, it’s made of Trebbiano di Lugana, not Trebbiano Toscano. Once you understand this the whole thing becomes much clearer.
Spain is like that, too. I’m sure that’s the same with any traditional wine region, or even less traditional, has multiple local names for the same grape and lots of confusion. We’ve been witnessing the mess being cleaned up, especially now with DNA testing, over the last few decades. Some regions are just behind. Laws dictate what’s on the label and such, but not the words the farmers use. Traditional grape names often refer to things like description, usage and place. Tinta, petit, noir, alicante, musque, etc. For the farmers, it was first about differentiating between grapes with their vineyard. Next was dealing with their neighbors. What’s going on two provinces over was of little concern, and this world-view standardization is modern.
Trebbiano di Lugana (recently rebranded Turbiana) is very similar to Verdicchio, which I love. The best use for Trebbiano Toscano is distillation into Armagnac.
How about that - they’ve determined that Vermentino and Pigato are the same grape. I feel like I’m going to school reading this book (and I mean that in a good way) .
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), the main section of the book is a simple grape by grape listing in alphabetical order, and I find it both eminently readable and chock full of interesting tidbits.