Category: Wine

Map of Calabrian Wines

24.4.2019

WINES OF CALABRIA

Calabria is a beautiful region of southern Italy, rich in history and traditions, which boasts a vast material and immaterial cultural heritage. Bathed by the clear waters of the Ionian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea, it is separated from Sicily by the Strait of Messina. The mild climate, the beautiful colors of the sea, the rocky coasts alternating with sandy coasts, its wild and mysterious nature, the intense and genuine flavors of the local cuisine and the testimonies of its ancient origins make Calabria a unique place to admire both in winter and in summer.

The ancient Greeks knew Calabria as Enotria, “Land of wine”, and the Calabrian wines were offered as a prize to the winners of the Olympics. In more recent times, the phylloxera epidemic has given a severe blow to the Calabrian viticulture, in fact for many years the Calabrian wines have been relegated as cutting wines, and it is only in recent years, thanks to the stubbornness of many local winemakers, that the qualitative level has come back to previous times.

MAP


Map of Wines Production Areas

The main viticultural areas of Calabria are the Cosentino (near Cosenza, see the map), Lametino (surrounding Lamezia Terme), Cirotano (near Crotone) and Locride (the tiny yellow area of production of Greco di Bianco wine).

The area of Cosentino, located north of the region bordering with Basilicata, is the most extensive production area, where viticulture has recovered the hills between 500/700 meters.

The denomination Donnici wine has been absorbed by the new one, Terre di Cosenza DOC, with its seven Subzones, and it has given a new impulse and reconfigured in 2011 the viticulture of all northern Calabria, merging the historical certifications, DOC and IGT, of this province and putting order in a myriad of vines and ancient areas. For example, in recent years the most widespread vine, Magliocco Canino, has been included in Terre di Cosenza and revalued, which is expressed in a wine rich in color, with a powerful structure and incisive aromas of blackberry and spices of the Crati Hills (called Terre di Cosenza – Sub-hills of the Crati DOC), while lower chromatic concentrations and excellent balance is present in the Valle dell’Esaro wine (Terre di Cosenza Subarea Esaro DOC). Also in this area are produced light rosé wines and ready to drink. In addition, vineyards that reach 800 meters give white wines elegant and fragrant, fresh and young to drink, based on Greco Bianco and Guarnaccia, used in purity or in blends. A gem is the Moscato di Saracena, a sweet wine with toasted hints, traditionally produced with dried Moscatello and reduced must for the concentration of Guarnaccia and Malvasia.

Donnici Village

Along the course of the Savuto, natural border of the province of Cosenza to the south and territory of the denominations Savuto DOC and Lamezia DOC, there is the well known Magliocco dolce – here identified as “arvino” -, to which is flanked Gaglioppo, Greco Nero and Aglianico inside the less known Scavigna DOC, while for the white wines Trebbiano Toscano, Malvasia Bianca, Chardonnay and Traminer Aromatic grapes are used.

The Ionic side, in the province of Crotone, is the realm of the Cirò DOC denomination, first in terms of numbers and diffusion, whose wine is produced with Gaglioppo grapes. The rebirth of this wine – which the ancient Greeks called “Kremisi” – is recent history and is the result of lower yields per hectare and better production technologies. Until a few years ago Cirò DOC was endowed with a strong alcoholic component and aggressive tannins, but today, while maintaining shades that fade quickly in the orange and quite transparent, it offers a warm taste but with an appreciable tannin. Rosé wines obtained from Gaglioppo grapes are also interesting, fresh and fragrant with rosehip and raspberry.

Typical Cirò vine: Gaglioppo

In the area of Reggio Calabria, area of the denomination Bivongi DOC, the blends are obtained from international vines and ancient grapes, among which the Greco Nero and the Nocera stand out, together with Nerelli Mascalese and Cappuccio, which give simple wines and others that, on the contrary, give their best after aging.

Locride is a land of rare wines. From the slopes of the Aspromonte towards the edge of the coast that overlooks the Ionian Sea, the Mantonico is subjected to a slight drying for the production of a sweet and fresh wine, while not far away, in the municipality of Bianco and only in part of that of Casignana, the Greco Bianco di Bianco has found the ideal terroir to give the famous sweet wine, which is almost impossible to find elsewhere. The bunches are greedy for care, but they are stingy with fruits, they dry on trellises in the sun for 10-15 days and give a sweet and soft wine, which gives Mediterranean aromas like orange blossom, bergamot, apricot, honey and sage. This Greco di Bianco DOC is a true enological gem produced in very few bottles.

Greco di Bianco passito, reeds of essication

CLIMATE AND TERRITORY, VINE GROWING SYSTEMS

Calabria is a beautiful region of southern Italy that stretches along an impervious and difficult territory. It is bathed by the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas and is characterized by narrow valleys modelled by rivers and mountains that divide it into two, making the climatic conditions between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian sides really different.

The climate in the areas around Cosenza is continental, so that the wine-growing areas are subject to intense temperature variations which are particularly favorable for the cultivation of white grapes, which improves the bouquet expressed in the wines.

In the mountainous areas of the Sila the thermal excursions are attenuated by warmer temperatures, influenced by the scirocco winds and the tramontana, which enrich the sugary components of the grapes grown on the hills of the well known Cirò.

Argillaceous-calcareous soil

Along the coast, the Mediterranean climate influences the innermost vineyards of the granite Aspromonte up to those of the Costa dei Gelsomini (near Reggio Calabria), where the historic Greco di Bianco finds the ideal conditions for the production of wines of excellent quality.

Other differences are also found in the composition of the land: in fact, from the vineyards cultivated in the terraces – composed mainly of limestone soils of volcanic origin – we obtain dense and structured wines whose powerful tannins offer optimal conditions for medium-long evolutions. Argillaceous-calcareous formations of the hills of the Ionic side favor Gaglioppo and the production of slightly colored, sapid and mineral red wines.

Vine growing, “Alberello” (little tree) type

The vine growing systems practiced in Calabria are mainly spurred cordon, but the historical cultivation in Alberello is among the most widespread compared to the oldest ones (especially for the Cirò wine).

Greco di Bianco, ancestral wine

17.2.2019

Everyone tasted, once in a lifetime, at least, the liqueur wine, and sweet, which passes under the popular name of passito or malvasia wine.
Even Alexander the Great, a great drinker of raisin wine, seems to have also died from the effects of a solemn hangover (of raisin wine), during a last banquet with his generals in 323 B.C.; further, starting with his death begins the famous Hellenistic age and the historical connubbio between Greek and Roman culture.

It is as saying that passito opens a new era in human culture.

Perfect with cheese

CALABRIAN PASSITO WINE: GRECO DI BIANCO

The grape of passito wines are the so called Mediterranean Malvasias. These grapes are present in different countries and, there, each is always located many kilometers apart from the other. They are unique and rare, each with its own peculiarities. They have an enormous evocative power, and are linked to myths and legends that span a time span of over three thousand years of human history.

All the Mediterranean Malvasias accompany the marvelous voyage of the domestication of the vine from East to West, and the delicious nectar of Calabrian Greco di Bianco is almost certainly the greatest demonstration.

Echo of a glorious past

COMMON ORIGINS OF DIFFERENT GRAPES

Some in-depth genetic research has classified our very ancient “Greco di Bianco”, a vine from which the homonymous wine is obtained, like a malvasia. This Calabrian grape was formerly considered as distinct cultivars from the Malvasias of the Lipari, of Sardinia (of Bosa and of Cagliari), the Greco di Bianco (or of Gerace), Malvasia di Sitges, Malvasia dubrovačka (Croatia), the candid white of Madeira (Portugal) and Tenerife (Canary Islands).

Instead, all the mentioned grapes have shown an “identical molecular profile”, they all come from Calabria!

According to prof. Attilio Scienza, University of Milan, it is not known from which specific Mediterranean region Malvasia grapes left, nor what was the chronology of their stages of diversification in the West, but as shown by some DNA sequences, it seems that this vine did not arrive in Spain from Greece, but from Magna Graecia and therefore perhaps from Calabria.

Vineyards descending towards the sea

The cultivation of these Mediterranean Malvasias is still today located near the sea, as in Calabria; this shows that their wines were for the compositional characteristics suitable for long journeys and the object of intense trade.

A TRACE OF PAST IN THE GRAPES NAME: MALVASIA

In the past there was a lot of confusion between the Malvasia wine and the Greek wines, very similar for the organoleptic characteristics of the wine, as evidenced by the synonymy of Malvasia with Greco di Bianco or Gerace, the only one among the group’s vine varieties in all likelihood, to Greek colonization. In Dalmatia and in Spain it arrived in the Middle Ages to emulate the Venetian malvasias.

A solution of the problem can be found in the history of the name “Malvasia”, as it follows.

According to some studies the name derives from “Monemvasia”, an old commercial port of Laconia, in the Peloponnese. The first written document of a Malvasia dates back to 1214, when the Archbishop of Ephesus Nicola Mesarites referred to a wine called “Monovasia” or “Monemvasios” together with the wines of Chios, Lesbos and Eubea. The Italianisation and diffusion of this term is linked to an active wine trade in the Middle Ages, especially by the Venetians, who began marketing the Vinum de Malvasias in 1278.

Malvasia, the grape, and a glass of liqueur

The name Malvasia referred to the sweet and aromatic wines of Greece (produced in the Peloponnese, in Rhodes, Crete and in the Ionian islands) and after the latter was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, new production centers were created along the sea routes of the Mediterranean. In Italy the first to speak about the various Malvasias was Andrea Bacci at the end of the sixteenth century: in his work he reports that Giulio Cesare Scaligero of Riva del Garda, a humanist cousin him, claimed that the etymology of Monobaticum wine derives from the Greek Monobasiten ( Μονοβασίτήν) term by which Athenaeum of Naucrati (3rd century AD) called a particular wine “the sole basis and foundation of the goodness of all wines”.

Drying the grapes on the reeds

TASTE AND HISTORY

The above mentioned hints of history and oenological science are enough to make clear what experience awaits the lucky drinker of this fantastic sweet and liqueur wine of Calabria, called “Greco di Bianco”.
We wish everyone to drink it in happy company (and at a temperature just below 18 degrees)!