Another fine mess.

Our traditional barney at Venice airport (see our post of 25.1.09) consisted this time of an argument over whether Lugana was a grape or a district. We said a district and they said it was a grape. A helpful third party said Lugana was nothing more than Trebbiano, so back at the ranch we surfed Trebbiano, Lugana and much more and came up with the following;

The Lugana was the first DOC wine registered in Lombardy and was among the the very first in Italy. Despite the fact that the DOC denomination refers to the grape used as Trebbiano di Soave, locally known as Trebbiano di Lugana, recent research has found that the genoma of the vine from which the Lugana is made is different from both the Trebbiano Veronese and the one used to make Verdicchio in the Marche region. Thus, according to the Università degli Studi di Milano (Milan University), this is a native vine grown exclusively in this wine zone.
The historic denomination of this vine, selected during centuries of agriculture by the local vintners, is Turbiana, a name whose roots are lost in the past in the area known as Lugana. based upon these facts, the President of the Consorzio Tutela Lugana DOC (Consortium for the Protection of the Lugana DOC), Paolo Fabiani, have asked for the formal recognition of the vine, its addition to the Catalogo Nazionale delle Varietà (National Register of Vine Varieties), and the selection of authorized clones.
www.winecountry.it

Wine Grape: Verdicchio Bianco
White wine grape generally thought to be native to Italy's Marche region; Verdicchio's origins are uncertain but ancient, as the Latin agricultural writer Lucio Giunio Moderato Columella mentions it as early as the first century A.D. Recent DNA studies have concluded that Verdicchio Bianco is from the same family as Trebbiano di Soave and Trebbiano di Lugana. A popular theory is that around the 15th century, a number of farmers moved from the Verona area to the Marche, bringing some vine cuttings with them. Over the centuries, the vine adapted itself to its new environment and developed new characteristics. In addition to still whites, verdicchio gives good results as sparkling wine. The name undoubtedly comes from the green (verde) color of the grapes, and the green hue in its wines.

Synonyms
Also known as Marchigiano, Marino, Peloso, Trebbiano di Soave, Trebbiano di Lugana, Trebbiano Veronese, Trebbiano Verde, Turbiano, Turviana, Uva Marana, Verdicchio Dolce, Verdicchio Giallo, Verdicchio Marchigiano, Verdicchio Peloso, Verdicchio Stretto, Verdicchio Verde, Verdicchio Vero, Verdone, Verzello
www.insiderwinetours.com


Albano, Biancone, Blanc Auba, Blanc De Cadillac, Blancoun, Bobiano, Bonebeou, Branquinha, Brocanico, Bubbiano, Buriano, Buzzetto, Cadillac, Cadillate, Castelli, Castelli Romani, Castillone, Chator, Clairette D'Afrique, Clairette De Vence, Clairette Ronde, Engana Rapazes, Espadeiro Branco, Falanchina, Greco, Gredelin, Hermitage White, Juni Blan, Lugana, Malvasia Fina, Muscadet Aigre, Padeiro Branco, Perugino, Procanico, Procanico Dell Isola D Elba, Procanico Portoferraio, Queue De Renard, Romani, Rossan De Nice, Rossetto, Rossola, Rossula, Roussan, Roussea, Rusciola, Saint Emilion, Saint Emilion Des Charentes, Santoro, Shiraz White, Spoletino, Talia, Trebbianello, Trebbiano, Trebbiano Della Fiamma, Trebbiano Di Cesene, Trebbiano Di Empoli, Trebbiano Di Lucca, Trebbiano Di Tortona, Trebbiano Fiorentino, Trebbiano Toscano, Trebbianone, Tribbiano, Tribbiano Forte, Turbiano, Ugni Blanc,[7] Bouan, Beau, Thalia, [3] Trebbiano di Soave, Trebbiano Romagnolo, Trebbiano Gallo and Trebbiano d'Abruzzo.
Wikipedia

Not to mention Bombino…(cf our post of 18.3.10)

So Lugana = Trebbiano = Verdicchio with some local adaptations, differences etc.

Someone also tried to tell us that Schioppettino was none other than Malvasia Nera but what he meant was Ribolla Nera. People should take more care. It is probably like this that rumours get started.

Finally, potentially good news for wine diversity. At Venice Marco Polo Airport there was something almost unbelievable considering this blog's obsession with the hitherto unknown (to us) variety Tocai (Tai) Rosso (post 26.3.10). Nothing less than a stand completely devoted to "Vini nuovi Tai"!

In fact this also referred to Tocai Friulano which are now also known as Tai Friulano as well as just Friulano and the wines of Lison Pramaggiore. Of these we tasted and subsequently bought and devoured an example from our fave Castello di Porcia whose 'Malbeck' we had so enjoyed a rather long time ago (post 5.7.08).

There, Maria Teresa Bett, presiding over the tastings and representing the Venezia Wine Forum whose initiative it was, told us that Tocai Rosso has nothing to do with Grenache! This was good news as we had drunk Tai Rosso wherever we could in Venice and bought two bottles in town necessitating the payment of extra money to check a case in on Easyjet.



So it would be an added bonus if our love of these wines was also a liking for a rare grape variety, not just Grenache.

Maria Teresa's pronouncement was music to our ears even with such formidable authorities as Nicholas Belfrage taking the opposite view. The jury is still out!

In Spain yet again

The news is that Tierras de Malaga, our tip for Spainish wine's new frontier is making a breakthrough. Finally the wines of Ronda etc. are being stocked by El Corte Ingles and may even be bought at Malaga Duty Free. Here's the proof:

The red shelves in the Hipercor downstairs




and the white


and even in the Club del Gourmet on the top floor;



At the airport was an ideosyncratic Syrah for E. 7.50 which was on the sweet side but grew on us. You can also buy Malaga (sweet wines) there.

Edinburgh - a wine festival

Yes, there really was a Fringe event with a programme of winetastings on a barge on the canal at Fountainbridge near the city centre. It semed to be better sold than the majority of the Fringe too. The tastings were carried out by Claire Blackler of Case Studies Wine School and had catchy titles including

Left, Right & Centre - an intro to Bordeaux
American Beauties - big, full & juicy!
Purely Portugal - corking quinta-sensuals
Regional Heroes - Australian terroir-tories

You get the picture.

Claire is teaming up with Tony Crolla to present a programme at his new and beautifully appointed Enoteca 'Divino'.


Tony is the owner of the Vittoria restuarants in Edinburgh. Divino is the only Sampler type establishment outside London.


We think it may be only the third in the country after The Sampler itself and Selfridges.

In any case this is just the thing Slotovino approves of, especially when the wines offered include a great Fumin, a white Chambave, a Pigato
and much of interest besides. Divino is not really a wine bar and certainly not a restaurant. It is a place for people who are serious about wine and want to taste many different ones. Sebastiano ('Bas') took care of us and certainly knows his stock. Bravo Tony.

A rival outfit, just as serious about wine is indeed a restaurant: Giuliano's.

This seems to be as much an epicentre of Scottish/Italian life as Valvona and Crolla or indeed Vittoria. We had met Sr. Giuliano two years ago and had debated the content of Mancini's 'Il Blu'. We became firm friends and Sr. Giuliano had wanted nothing more than to take us home and give us a taste of his home-made wine. This time he not only remembered us but recounted the sad story of 'Il Blu' which had ceased production owing to the failure of the Ancelotta component.

Nevertheless we had a wonderful meal of Polpetone and Lacrima di Morro d'Alba. The restaurant was heaving and the Italian waiters dressed in Tartan were terrific,

singing Happy Birthday to customers and providing a tremendous service.

Raeburn Fine Wines were closed when we passed by but Villeneuve were open until late in New Town (geddit?). There we finally succumbed to the selfsame bottle of Ribolla Gialla from Slovenia which he had seen in 2008 having understood it was an Orange wine.
We also picked up a Greek white called Savatiano after the grape from which it is made.


What a town. Glasgow, are you listening?

Gamaret at Geneva Airport Duty Free

There is a small and characteristically expensive selection of Swiss wine at Geneva Airport Duty Free. In fact there is a further and even more expensive selection at the Caviar House & Prunier in the same airport.

One of the best buys was a Gamaret by La Cave de Geneve "La Clemence".


all we wanted to do was to try it so we bought a bottle at something approaching CHF20. We also bought a Swiss Aligote which sounded interesting but turned out to be bland. at CHF38.60 we didn't get what we paid for.

Our Easyjet flight left from a satellite (Gate 30 - something if we remember correctly). There we found the same Gamaret for significantly less in a 50cl bottle. So what we are saying is if you are passing through GVA on an Easyjet flight, DO buy the Gamaret - it is excellent - but if you don't want a 75cl bottle, wait until you get to the satellite and there you will find the smaller bottle!

We thought you might want to know that.

A propos, Swiss wine merchants and producers have more sizes of wine bottles than anyone else in the world as far as we can tell. 50cl bottles are common as are, wierdly enough, many 70cl ones. There are also 35cl bottles aplenty and 20cl ones too. There were even a 113cl and a 38cl bottle on the list of Paul Ulrich of Basel. So be careful to check what you are buying.

Croatia - 270 varieties waiting to be tapped

Croatia alone is said to have 270 indiginous grape varieties. The republics of the former Yugoslavia are a fascinating repository of these, of winemaking traditions and above all, of potential. Already Slovenia is being absorbed into the world mainstream thanks to its proximity to Italy and not least thanks to its role in cross-border winemaking during the time of socialist Yugoslavia. The Slovenes certainly know how to value their wines and charge accordingly.

A good example of what to expect from the less well known regions is what has happened to Laski Rizling. This really was at the bottom of the pile in the Cold War days - something even less enticing than Liebfraumilch if memory serves. Today we are aware this sorry concept is in fact Welschriesling or Riesling Italico, from which ever more really wonderful wines are been made in Austria in particular and many east European countries where its synonyms include Olasz Rizling (Hungary), Vojvodina (Slovenia) and Vlassky Rizling (Slovakia). Vlassky or Laski refers to Wallachia/Romania, hence Welsch. It is not related to Riesling. In Croatia, it goes under the altogether more melifluous name Grasevina and produces delicious wines a million miles away from supermarket Laski Rizling of the 1970s.


Then there is Crljenak Kastelanski which has been confirmed as the original Zinfandel. In our brief but promising preliminary skirmish with the wines of Croatia, nowhere did we come across a Crljenak Kastelanski, a Primitivo (which was fancied at one time as the origin of Zinfandel but turned out no so to be) or a Zinfandel for that matter. What is ubiquitous is a near relative, Plavac Mali, now starring in a Waitrose near you but none the worse for that.

The most popular white variety is Posip. This with its near namesake Sipon is nothing else but Furmint and none the worse for that either.

Beyond Plavac Mali, Grasevina and Posip are of course 267 other varieties. We got just a little bit further into these with a Babic bought, like the Grasevina at Split Airport Duty Free and yet to be tasted,


a wonderful Malvazija Istarska by the glass at the excellent Sesame Restaurant, Dubrovnik - a real eye opener this, a Grk from the island of Korcula (our sample altogether too rustic), another white from the island of Krk called Zlatna, made from the Zlatina variety (more promising)


and something called Teran which got us needlessly excited, turning out not to be one of the by now 264 remaining varieties but our old friend Refosco. We should have remembered the bottle of Terrano we bought at Per Bacco in Milan which turned out to be the local name for Mondeuse as we were told there. Mondeuse used to be thought of as being nothing other than Refosco but this is now in doubt, so most probably both Terrano and Teran = Refosco.


This version by Kozlovic was a delight.

So things are on the move. Having left Croatia in 1954, Mike Grgich of Grgich Hills, California fame has returned to teach young winemakers and has an operation of his own there. Just how far there is still to go was demonstrated for us by the wine of the beautiful island of Vis.

In the ancient world, the wine of this small island (known by the Greeks as Issa) was said (by Athenaios) to be 'the best, compared with all the others'. This is most definitely not the case today. Viticulture on Vis dates back therefore well over 2,000 years. Before the First World War, production was 53 million gallons a year. The island has suffered since. Until 1989, it was a military zone. Some of the vineyards were even blown up in manoeuvres - certainly a common sight is piles of stones which look as if they came from ruined terraces. Nevertheless, attempts are being made to revive viticulture and winemaking. They even have at least one native grape variety, Vugava (aka Bugava) and possibly a second one called Kurteloška, both white, both of which which we managed to miss.

We tasted a Plavac Mali from a vineyard on the island which according to Google, may now, sadly be for sale.



If the tiny island of Vis has its own grape varieties and there are a thousand islands, the countries of the former Yugoslavia are rich indeed. Let's hope these grape varieties are not allowed to die out even if the names are challenging - Dingač, Gegić, Maraština, Turbijan, Bogdanuša, Puljižanac, Zilavka, Ranac Silbanjski...

The Slotovino 2010 Thames Valley growing season

The season started so promisingly. For the first time ever, we had white grapes on practically every vine.

Our variety is Bacchus. Something has prevented these vines from flourishing. It looks like Powdery Mildew.

The beautiful weather up to mid-July seemed set to last but it was not to be. With the rains and general dampness returned the mildew. We don't spray so it sems that is that for another year as far as the white is concerned.

Our Triomphe d'Alsace vines are altogether more obliging and this year there are more

and bigger grapes than ever.

From experience we know nothing phases them and they need no spraying.

Just a pity they don't make very good wine.

What we drank this summer

To Italy, of course: Toscana and Umbria. Was there anything new to find in these well-trodden parts?


Actually, yes. At Enoteca Marcucci, Pietrasanta there is a gentleman who lived and worked in Brighton for a number of years. He entered the spirit of our quest for unknown/unusual grape varieties and came up withwhat we thought was a winner: Massaretta. He thought the example called "Negreto"



from Tenuta Palatina (Alta Versilia - Rosso di Toscano) was 100% Massaretta but subsequently we discovered it may have a majority of Vermentino Nero, itself a new one on us (see below) and some Syrah in the mix. never mind - a very tasty blend of mostly obscure grape varieties.



On an excursion to Pienza we chanced on Enoteca di Ghino which was notable for having a number of bottles of Chateau Petrus tastefully arranged in a basket near the door. Ghino himself was down the alley having a chat with neighbours. There was no one else to be seen. Naturally, there was no temptation to pocket the Petrus - it is only Merlot after all.



Ghino is a man with a bit of an obsession for Sangiovese clones. He informed us there are 8 of these. We then tried to tell him that although this was very interesting, what we were after was something more obscure than Sangiovese in any of its clonal forms. Ghino belongs to the group of people who don't really understand our search, or perhaps don't think it valid. Trying to give him a 'for instance' we mentioned Pugnitello (see 'What we drank this summer' - 2008).

"Ah, Pugnitello," he said. "Yes we used to stock it but we decided it wasn't really very good when considering the price/quality ratio." Disappointed we were just considering this statement when he added "of course Pugnitello is just a clone of Sangiovese..."

We made our excuses and left.

In Lucca, our favourite Enoteca Vanni was closed but in its place we found Marsili Costantino around the corner in the Piazza San Michele.



There we bought a Traminer which turned out to be a Gewurtztraminer (in Italy there is a great deal of 'confusione' on this point as we have seen (the argument we had at Venice Airport). A quite expensive mistake, but our fault entirely. The shop has a good and interesting selection if you're not looking off the beaten track. We also bought a reasonably priced Bianco di Pitigliano which went down well for its bone-dryness and a Ribolla Gialla from Friuli if memory serves.

In Forte dei Marmi we tried our luck at the fashionable Gastronomia "Salumeria dai Parmigiani" (founded 1952).


It was market day and the place was brimmimg with customers (you will have to imagine them in the photo here) making it difficult to find a place to stand never mind inspect the stock. Eventually we were referred to the rather young and dynamic wine buyer who put his hand immediately on a Vermentino Nero (sitting in a box, out on the pavement), yet another lacuna in our otherwise burgeoning knowledge of out-of-the-way grape varieties.




And the bottle cost under 10 Euros and doesn't appear in Jancis Robinson's 1986 'Vines, Grapes and Wines' or the recent Oxford Companion to wine. Bliss.

In restaurants, we drank some wines from Lucca and noted that the steady improvement over the years has been maintained and also how the prices have increased. Tenuta di Valgiano is now around the 20 Euro mark for instance.

At the Co-op we found again some wines by Tiberio whose Canaiolo in purezza had so impressed us on our visit to Chianciano Terme in 2008. This time it was a Malvasia Nera which was almost equally delicious.


Definitely one for the hall of fame.

In Umbria we tried to track down a Rosso Orvietano Canaiolo but only drew blanks. Umbria's claim to fame is Sagrantino of course but that really is good but not really great when considering the price/quality ratio if you ask us.