Wine and the Etruscan III: the production

So far, we have learned to know the Etruscans and their viticulture, based on the "married vine". Now let's talk about wine production.

As for viticulture, even when we talk about ancient winemaking in Italy, we only allude to Roman wine. Yet the Romans also learned also winemaking from the Etruscans. The word vinum, wine, is passed to the Latin from the Etruscan. It then has remained in modern European languages (Italian and Spanish vino, French vin, English wine, German wein, etc.). However, its origin is even older and it comes from far away. It seems to be a sort of "traveling word" that most likely followed the same historical-temporal path of the vine and wine, from East to West:

winuwanti in ancient Licaonia (Caucasus)

wnš / wnšt in ancient Egyptian

wo-na-si or wo-no in Mycenae

foinos-voinos in Aeolian dialect

vinom in faliscan (ancient language of the Falisci, who lived in the southern part of Etruria, between the Cimini mountains and the Tiber river, in the area of present-day Civita Castellana)

vinum in Etruscan and then in Latin.

The current Georgian (Caucasus) gwino marks the starting point.

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Vinum in the Etruscan alphabet (written from right to left).
liber linteus
A detail of an Etruscan text, from the Liber Linteus; the word vinum is highlighted, enlarged above.
liber_zagabria
The above word vinum is extracted from the IX fragment of the Liber Linteus (III-I century BC), "linen book" or also called "Book of the mummy of Zagreb" (a name due to the incredible circumstances of the its discovery). It is the oldest book of Europe, an Etruscan religious text that describes ceremonies and rituals. It is the only book that we have from this civilasation because they used perishable materials, such as the linen (it also was used by the early Roman). The incredible preservation of the "Liber Linteus" arises from a fortuitous event. This book probably arrived in Egypt with some Etruscan travelers or emigrants. Somehow it ended up in the hands of the locals who, not understanding it, they used the material (linen). They made it into bandages, used to wrap a mummy of Hellenistic era. The bandages were been soaked with substances for mummification. In this way, unintentionally, they allowed the preservation of a precious document over the centuries. In 1848 a Croatian bought this mummy in Egypt and took it to the Zagreb museum. When the scholars unrolled the bandages, they realized that they contained a text inside, written in a language that was not ancient Egyptian. After a thousand conjectures, in 1892 the Egyptologist Jakob Krall demonstrated that the mysterious language was none other than the Etruscan. This book became one of the most studied texts to understand the language of this ancient people.

 

The Etruscan word vinum therefore derives from a foreign influence, from Greek culture. It is therefore thought that it came into use only from the 8th century B.C. There is a native word for this drink: temetum. This belongs to the protohistoric roots of the Etruscan and Latin peoples. However, the word vinum will be the winner.

 

After this linguistic digression, we come to our point.

How did the Etruscans make wine?

It is not easy to answer this question. We know some things for certain, we can deduce others by affinity from other Mediterranean peoples. We can surely get a lot of information from Roman authors. The productive techniques of Archaic Rome tell us much about Etruscan oenology.

In very primitive times, in general, scholars hypothesize that grapes were crushed in small containers, simply squeezed by hand or using stones as pestles.

 

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The pressing with hands, from an educational laboratory that we did in our cellar with the children of a kindergarten.

However, when the man began to represent the scene of vinification in frescoes or on found vases, the use of pressing with feet in larger containers prevailed already.

We know for sure that, at a certain point, the Etruscans began to crush the grapes into rough vats carved in the stone, called PALMENTI (the singolar is palmento). They were dug into natural rocky outcrops. These vats, before the vine domestication, were realized near the wild vines in the woods. With the beginning of cultivation, the palmento was made in the vineyards. It was probably covered with light structures, made by canes or other, to shade them or to protect them from light rains. We know it because four holes were found in some of them, also dug into the rock, as bases for housing the support poles of a canopy.

 

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Palmento in the Etruscan site of Tolfa (near Rome); it was used by local peasants up to the medieval period.
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Pressing with feet in a palmento. The men support themselves with sticks and each to the other (Roman bas-relief)

It is thought that stone vats appeared more or less from the first millennium BC. Rare examples date back to the Bronze Age but they become more numerous later. Their dating, however, is not simple, because they were also used for centuries. In Italy, many ancient palmenti were been used by local farmers until the Middle Ages and, sometimes, even later, some even up to the mid-twentieth century.

The stone vats have been found in Tuscany, in the Marche, in Latium, in Campania, in Calabria, in Sardinia, as well as in almost all areas of the Eastern Mediterranean. They have also been found in the countries of the Western Mediterranean (such as Spain, Portugal and southern France) but these date back to Roman colonization.

On the other hand, except for rare exceptions, they are missing in the Greek colonies of southern Italy. It is thought, probably, that wooden containers were more used in this area, of which obviously there are no traces left.  This system was the one most used also in the mother country. Infect, from the numerous harvest scenes on the vases, it is clear that in Greece, in archaic times, transportable wooden vats were mainly used, with legs, positioned directly in the vineyard.

 

satiri_vinificazione_winex_museo_del_vino_firenze
From a Greek amphora, 5th century BC: scene of grape crushing on a portable wooden vat (the one with legs in the middle)

 

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The same theme of grape crushing appears on this cup (end of the 6th century BC). It was found in Etruria, attributed to the artist called "the Chiusi painter". The Etruscans very probably known the grape pressing Greek techniques but we have no evidence that they have used them.

In Crete, in the Bronze age, the depictions show the grape crushing with the feet in species of ceramic vats. Also in Magna Graecia there is evidence of lime-covered clay vats. Similar constructions, made with raw bricks, are also found in the Phoenician-Punic world and in Egypt.

PSM_V51_D243_Pressing_the_grapes_and_storing_wine
From the frescoes of the Thebes tombs of the 16th century BC: we can see that crude clay vats were used. The workers avoided slipping by attaching to ropes fixed to the ceiling.

Returning to the Etruscan stone vats, these were dug inside rocky outcrops composed by easily workable material, often of volcanic origin, such as peperino or tuff. These materials are very perishable by erosion; they were been the cause of the loss of mostly of the ancient palmenti, became over time unrecognizable.

The palmenti were formed by a cavity or, more frequently, by two, communicating through a drainage channel. The grapes were crushed with bare feet in the upper vat. This is (more or less) square in shape and not too deep, with the drainage channel closed with clay. The crushed grapes were left to rest. Then the communicating hole was opened and the liquid was left to filter in the vat below. This second vat was deeper and smaller, often semicircular. Here fermentation was completed. The must could also be transferred and fermented in terracotta amphoras, those that the Romans will call dolii (dolium, in the singular).

 

palmenti disegno

 

The pomace, left in the upper tank, was crushed to recover the must-wine contained. The most primitive systems were based on the squashing made with stones or pieces of wood resting on. Later, probably, grapes were squeezed in sacks. At the end, the pomace was washed with water, producing a very light wine for the lower classes (the Romans call these wines deuteria or loria; this practice will remain common until modernity).

egyptwineprs_18721_lg
These images from the tombs of Thebes in Egypt give us an idea of the ancient pressing of the pomace with the sacks, probably common to many Mediterranean cultures. The sacks could be crushed or twisted by men or with sticks or others systems, as illustrated.

wine1

In Greece, rudimentary wine presses are documented on amphorae from the sixth century BC. They are made by a trunk lowered by human force or weighed down with stones. It is impossible to find remains of these presses, because they are made of rough materials (stones) and perishable materials (wooden parts). However, it can be assumed that they were also used by the Etruscans, by themselves or for Greek influence. However, the first documentation of similar wine presses in Italy is due to Cato, in the II century B.C.

003 (3)
Wooden wine press from a Greek vase (end of the 6th century BC). It is a simple trunk that is used as a lever, lowered by the weight of the man and by sacks, filled with stones (held in place by the second human figure). Scholars have been able to understand that it is a wine press and not for oil thanks the typical shape of the collecting amphora, a crater, used only for this drink.

The wines were kept in terracotta containers, like most of the products in the ancient era. Very probably also wineskins were used, of which there are no remains, but which are often depicted.

Athenaeus
From an ancient Greek amphora: the man on the left drinks the wine directly from a wineskin, the one on the right from an amphora.

In successive epochs, the passage towards a more evolved wine production is marked by the realization of the palmenti directly in the farms. Meanwhile, Etruria was gradually annexed by Rome, in a period ranging from the 3rd to the 1st century BC. From the late Republican age onwards, the methods of wine production in Italy are widely known and documented by Roman authors.

At this stage masonry vats appear, which will remain typical of many parts of Italy, almost to the present day. They were made of stones or bricks cemented with mortar and then plastered with waterproof mortar. The grapes were pressed with the feet and the must was left to settle. Then it was fermented in cisterns in masonry or in amphoras (dolii), lined internally with pitch. In all these ages we cannot exclude the use of wood, of which no traces remain.

santa costanza
Roman mosaic in the Saint Costance Mausoleum (Rome). On the left we see the harvest of grapes from very high vines (vines married to trees?) and the transport by a cart pulled by oxen. On the right, there is a mansory palmento, with an elegant covering, where grapes are pressing.
012
The drawing represents a reconstruction of a Roman masonry palmento. Near, there is a lever-screw wine press. Below, the vintage photo represents a masonry palmento from the 1950s in Emilia Romagna. Nothing has almost changed ...

 

vendemmia-lentini

doli interrati ad Ostia antica
Buried doli in ancient Ostia: they were the fermentation vats in ancient times.

The first wine obtained from the harvest was usually consumed immediately, while the remainder was poured into terracotta containers with the internal walls covered with resin or pitch. The wine was left to rest, foaming frequently; it was decanted in spring and poured into transport amphorae. The pomace was squeezed into lever presses, operated by ropes pulled by a winch. In the largest farmers, from the first century BC, there were also large presses with lever and screw, with big stones that served as a counterweight.

 

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The lever presses are also called "Catonian" because they were first described by Cato (in the II century BC), although they have much older origins. The most primitive, as already seen, were activated only by human force or by stone weights. In Rome, there was an evolution: the action on the lever is now carried out by ropes wrapped with a winch, or with hoists, to make the job easier.
066
The lever-screw press represents the next evolution. Here the pressure is exerted thanks to a screw gear, turned with arms force. The stone at the base acts as a counterweight. This type of press allows to exert a much greater force but it was expensive, so it is only present in the richest wineries. These wine presses will remain in use for all the following centuries, until the nineteenth century.

 

From the 1st century AD the central screw press was invented, safer and more manageable than the lever one, even if less powerful. It was made entirely of wood and therefore there aren't remains of the ancient era. We have this information from documents, especially from the testimony of Pliny (Naturalis Historia). For this reason, it is also called "Pliny's press".

004 (2)
These schemes exemplify the model of the central screw press (which could also have more than one element) described by Pliny. This system makes it possible to have smaller and less dangerous instruments, but with a capacity of force less than the lever one.
museo di Toso torchio di Plinio
A recent model of Pliny's press (museum of the winery Toso). Similar models are also found, from the Middle Ages onwards, throughout Europe.

The Pliny's press will make a remarkable leap only when it will can pass from the wooden gears to iron ones, which will happen only in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Roman times and in those to follow, iron was a very expensive material (without considering the technical difficulties of threading it regularly). No one would have thought of using iron where wood could be used. Only in the nineteenth century, thanks to the greater availability and the lower cost of the metal, its used began for the gears and then for the whole tool, allowing the definitive abandonment of the bulky (and difficult to handle) lever presses.

vinificazione romana
This drawing shows a winery in a Roman villa of the imperial era. On the left you can see the masonry palmento, where the grapes are pressed. Often it was also covered, to protect it from the sun and from bad weather, with light canopy structures or masonry roofs. At the center, there are two large wine presses. On the right, there are buried dolii, where the fermentation took place. In this drawing they are outdoors but often they were in closed rooms. Near, there is a worker carrying an amphora on his shoulders, of the type used for storing wine and for transport (especially by ship). Behind him, there is a cart with a wooden barrel, for transport by land.

 

Museo_guarnacci,_Mosaico_romano_02
Remains of the Roman era have been found in our area, that demonstrate the presence of agricultural villae. Unfortunately, there is nothing left, apart some artifacts, in exposition in nearby museums. The most important ones come from the "Villa of the Mosaic" at the foot of the Segalari hill, the remains of a sumptuous two-story Roman villa from the Augustan era, with well-preserved mosaic floors of 2nd century AD (probably added in a subsequent renovation). Unfortunately, given the scarce sensitivity of the finding time (the beginning of the 19th century), the villa was lost, but at least the mosaics were saved. At the time, they were removed and taken to the Etruscan Museum Guarnacci in Volterra, where they can still be visited today.

 

The wine production technique of the late empire will be the one that will remain substantially unchanged in Italy (and other areas of the Empire) for centuries to come. The various systems explained so far coexisted, some very archaic and others very advanced. We can imagine the great landowners who has made themselves build avant-garde and very expensive wineries. They could be imitated by local notables, but certainly not by other small farmers, with fewer financial resources, who continued to produce wine with simple tools, easy to produce by themselves.

Summarizing, the grapes were pressed with the feet in stone or masonry palmenti. Must was fermented in masonry tanks or, above all, in terracotta dolii. In this era, more and more wooden containers (documented) appear for crushing, fermentation and transport, which will become prevalent from the Middle Ages onwards. The pressing was done in the various types of wine presses described above, but mainly with lever presses with ropes and winch. Although this was an outdated technology, it remained the most widespread because it was the simplest and least expensive. The most modern systems of lever-screw or central screw presses, on the other hand, required skilled craftsmen to make them and quality timber, so they were only present in the richest wineries.

From the Middle Ages on, these same systems will remain. Almost all the terracotta containers will disappear and the wood will prevail. The palmenti and the different types of presses will remain. For substantial changes from these models, we will have to wait until the nineteenth century.

800px-Halage_sur_la_Durance_Amphores_et_tonneaux_gallo-romains


Wine and the Etruscan (II): the "married vine", three thousand and more years of viticulture and art

The Etruscans were the first winegrowers in Italy, beginning from the wild varieties.

The wild grapevine is a local plant in the Mediterranean area. In the more ancient times, people began to gather its fruits in the woods.

The wild vine (Vitis vinifera sylvestris) is a native species of the Mediterranean area and, above all, in Italy, it finds its ideal conditions. Even today, it is possible to find wild vines in our woods (even if you have to make attention to distinguish them from vines became wild, from old abandoned vineyards). The varieties we cultivate today derive from the wild vine, modified through millennia by selections and crossings carried out by man.

Returning to the Etruscans, scholars hypothesize that they cultivated the vine since the Bronze Age, however at least from the twelfth century B.C.

Later, with the development of civilization, being great navigators and merchants, they had increasingly intense contacts with the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean (especially with the Greeks), where culture and viticulture techniques were already more evolved. This allowed them to refine production techniques, to import new tools and new practices of working. New oriental vine varieties were also imported (whose process of domestication began in a much more remote era in the Caucasus area). These new vines were cultivated and crossed with local varieties too.

Thanks to these influences, the primitive Etruscan viticulture grew and grew over the centuries, and wine production increased in quantity and quality. So, from the 6th century B.C., began also the overseas trade (which we will discuss later).

The Etruscans cultivated vines in the same manner they saw these plants grow wild in the woods. The vine is a climbing shrub, a species of liana. In a wood, its natural environment in our latitudes, it tends to climb up a tree to reach the light as possible (it is very heliophilous specie). However, it is not a parasite: the vine does not weaken the tree on which it clings.

Today the Etruscan cultivation system name is “married vine”, "vite maritata" in Italian. The vine is like "married" to the tree. This definition is not Etruscan but was born later, as we will see. The Etruscan word was “àitason”.

 

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Tuscan wild vine in the vineyard of Guado al Melo, with the Etruscan vine-training system: the vine is "married" to a maple tree.

The vines were married to poplars, maples, elms, olive trees and various fruit trees. Originally they were not pruned, later they were subject to long pruning. The vine therefore tended to grow a lot, to have very long shoots. They picked up the grapes with the hands or with sickles, with ladders or using instruments with a very long handle.

vite maritata

The growing of vines in Etruria was not specialized: there was not a vineyard, as we understand it today. Instead, the vines were promiscuous with other crops (alternating with cereal fields, olive trees, fruit trees, etc.).

The “married vine” has remained in the Italian wine culture until almost our days, in all those territories where in ancient times the Etruscan civilization had arrived.

espansione etrusca
In gray-green: Etruria on 750 B.C. (Historic Etruria) In gray: conquered lands on 750-500 B.C.

The Etruscans, from the original area of Tuscany and upper Lazio (called "Historic Etruria") then widened their borders, expanding to Campania, to the south, and Emilia Romagna to the north. In Campania there is still today the border between the Etruscan wine culture (more to the north) and the Greek one (the vine-training system called "alberello"). In the latter, the vine was cultivated as a low stump, without support or with "dead" support (a pole). The Sele River marked, more or less, this border.

The Etruscans brought their advanced wine culture in the conquered lands, spreading it also to neighboring peoples, such the Cisalpine Gauls (the Cisalpine Gaul corresponds to a good part of the current northern Italy).

The Etruscans transmitted a great part of their culture to the nascent Roman civilization, including viticulture and wine production. According to the tradition, king Numa (one of the seven early kings of Rome), Etruscan by birth, taught the viticulture to the Romans.

In fact, in ancient Roman time, as witnessed in the De Agri Culture by Cato (II century BC), the cultivation of the vine was made in the Etruscan manner, marrying it to the elm or fig tree. The Etruscan àitason became the Latin arbustum (vitatum), which Cato sometimes also calls vinea, as well as Cicero does.

Varro, however, in De Re Rustica (39 B.C.) begun to distinguish two different forms of vine cultivation. Probably, in his time, a new form of viticulture emerges in Roman territories, the Greek one, already mentioned above. The word arbustum remains to indicate the married vine. Vinea becomes the term to indicate this new cultivation system. Both of them belong to the general category of vinetum.

Virgil, in the Georgics (29 B.C.) describes the viticulture of his land (Mantua) and tells that the vines were married to the elm.

Columella, in the De Re Rustica (65 AD), the first real agrarian treatise in history (it will remain the basic text for all the centuries to come, until at least the 18th century), describes the different systems of Roman viticulture. However, the increasing prevalence of the vinea to the detriment of the arbustum emerges, because the first guarantees viticulture that is more specialized.

Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historiae, 77 A.C.) tell us about the viticulture of Campania at the time, with vines married to the poplars, even very tall, especially in the area of Aversa. He distinguishes the arbustum italicum, where the vines rise on the single tree, from the arbustum gallicum (so called because it was very common in Cisalpine Gaul), where the vine shoots are passing from one tree to another and forming rows. Pliny was also a wine producer: he sold large quantities of it in Rome, producing it in his farms in Campania, from married vines.

 

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A vine married to a single tree, or arbustum italicum (nineteenth century drawing)
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Row of married vines or arbustum gallicum (early twentieth century photos in Emilia)

The married vines also return in to less relevant works of the late empire, such as the Opus Agricolturae by Palladius (4th century AD) and the Geoponica by the Byzantine Cassianus Bassus (6th century AD) which advises them in damp soils. In medieval period, we can find them in the work by Crescenzi (from Bologna), the only relevant medieval agricultural text of the European Middle Ages (1486).

In 1644, the Bolognese agronomist Vincenzo Tanara describes the two main systems of married vine of his time, which correspond to the Roman systems. He calls them “piantata” (the arbustum gallicum) and “alberata” ( the arbustum italicum), terms still used in modern Italian.

For all the following centuries, these two systems dominated the viticulture of the Center and the North Italy, depending on the area. The alberata were plots with vines climbing single trees, randomly positioned in the field or with regular arrangement. Native from central Etruria, they remained traditional especially in Tuscany (with the name of “testucchio”) but also Lazio and Umbria. The piantate instead was formed by rows in the border areas of the fields or along the banks of the ditches. They were more widespread in the north-central part of Etruria and in the areas of expansion to the South.  In fact, they remained traditional especially in the Po Valley and Campania.

 

Therefore, the married vine continued to be part of the Italian rural landscape even after the classical era and it was depicted in the art of all centuries.

 

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Illustration from Tacuina sanitatis (XIV c.)
2016_CKS_11973_0033_000(bernardino_luini_madonna_of_the_grapevine)
This beautiful Madonna, with baby Jesus, sits serene near a vine married to a fig tree (right). The work is by the Lombard Bernardino Luini ("Madonna with bunch of grapes", 1480-1485).
This scene of harvesting, from married vines, is by the Tuscan Antonio Tempesta ("September", 1599).

These landscapes also fascinated the foreign travelers of the eighteenth-century who were making their cultural journey in Italy, which was considered indispensable in the youth formation of the educated European class at the time. The landscapes with the married vines are in many paintings of that period. They are also told in the travel diaries, such as by the French architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot in the mid-eighteenth century, visiting Paestum (Suitte Des Plans, Coupes, Profils, Elévations géometrales et perspectives de trois Temples antiques, tels qu’ils existoient en mil sept cent cinquante, dans la Bourgade de Pesto… Ils ont été mésurés et dessinés par J. G. Soufflot, Architecte du Roy. &c. en 1750. Et mis au jour par les soins de G. M. Dumont, en 1764, Chez Dumont, Paris, 1764), or by Goethe with his famous "Journey to Italy" (1813-1817).

Hackert
Jakob Philipp Hackert, "Country people resting under the vines on the hills above the Solfatara, with views of Ischia, Procida and the bay of Pozzuoli", 1793. We can see the tall poplars with married vines. Aubert de Linsolas wrote in his work " Souvenirs de l'Italie” (1835): “... the branches of the vine intertwined with the great trees at the edge of the roadway, they give the idea of many triumphal arches of greenery, prepared for the passage of a powerful king."
Markó,_Károly_-_Landscape_at_Tivoli,_with_a_Scene_from_the_Grape_Harvest_-_Google_Art_Project z
Markó Károly, "Landscape in Tivoli with harvest scene", 1846. On the right, there is a man who is gathering grapes from a married vine with a ladder.

Elm_and_the_vine 1849

The image so evocative of the vine that embraces the tree, however, did not remain confined only to agrarian contexts. He also lit the imagination of artists and writers, who gave them different symbolic meanings.

From the first century AD, the poetic metaphor of the vine and the tree (especially the elm) appeared in the Latin literature as a symbol of indissoluble love. The vine is "married" to the tree: hence the term vitis maritae (vite maritata, in Italian) which we still use today ("married vine") was born.

For example, Gaius Valerius Catullus identifies the vine and the elm as a wife and husband in the "Bridal Song of boys and girls" (Carmina, poem 62, translation by E. T. Merrill):

“… As the widowed vine which grows in naked field never uplifts itself, never ripens a mellow grape, but bending prone beneath the weight of its tender body now and again its highmost shoot touches with its root; this no farmer, no oxen will cultivate: but if this same chance to be joined with marital elm, many farmers, many oxen will cultivate it: so the virgin, while she stays untouched, so long does she age, uncultivated; but when she obtains fitting union at the right time, dearer is she to her husband and less of a trouble to her father.”

In the Metamorphosis of Ovid (XIV, 623 and following), this metaphor appears in the love story of Vertumnus and Pomona. Vertumnus was a God of Etruscan origin, also remained in the Roman religion. He was the God of the transformations (verto, in Latin, means in fact change): of the change of the seasons but also of the trade. The God fell in love with Pomona, a very ancient Latin goddess of the cultivation of the fruits, which, however, was unapproachable. He tried to reach her with different disguises, and he had succeeded when he took the form of an old woman. Then, he tried to convince her to abandon herself to love with various arguments, including the metaphor of the vine and the elm:

“There was a specimen elm opposite, covered with gleaming bunches of grapes. After he had praised it, and its companion vine, he (the “old woman”) said: ‘But if that tree stood there, unmated, without its vine, it would not be sought after for more than its leaves, and the vine also, which is joined to and rests on the elm, would lie on the ground, if it were not married to it, and leaning on it. But you are not moved by this tree’s example, and you shun marriage, and do not care to be wed. I wish that you did!”

(A. S. Kline's Version)

 

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Vertumnus and Pomona, Francesco Melzi, 1518-1528

At the end of the speech, Vertumnus revealed itself. Pomona, struck by the words heard and the beauty of the God, gave in to love.

This story had great success in the Renaissance and it will remain a very frequent artistic themed until the eighteenth century.

Again, we find in Ovid (Amores, elegia XVI) this theme:

Ulmus amat vitem,
vitis non deserit ulmus;
Separor a domina
cur ego saepe mea?

(The elm loves the vine

The vine does not desert the elm;

Why so many times am I separated from my beloved?)

 

 

The theme of the vine married to the tree, however, reached its maximum diffusion thanks to the Milanese jurist Giovanni Andrea Alciato or Alciati (1492-1550). He published a collection of allegories and symbols (reproduced with woodcuts), explaining their moral value with short texts in Latin. The title was "Emblemata", published in Augsburg in 1531. It was an extraordinary success throughout Europe, with translations into Italian, French, Spanish, German and English. Alciato created a real new literary genre, of great success even in the following centuries, the emblem book.

Alciato reported the married vine as the emblem of Friendship and, in its purest form, of Love, with the Latin title:

"Amicitia etiam post mortem durans"

(Friendship that lasts even after death)

 

alcitati emblema

This interpretation was influenced by an epigram of the Greek poet Antipater of Thessalonica (1st century BC), in which a withered plane tree tells how the vine, climbed on it, keeps it green. Alciato, who is from Lombardy, corrects the Greek's error. The married vine was part of the agrarian landscapes of his native land and therefore he knew very well that it is the elm the ideal husband of the vine, not the plane tree.

Thanks to Alciato and to the success of the emblem book, the symbol of the vine married to the tree had an enormous diffusion and appeared in many artistic representations, in poems and literary works from all over Europe. The married vine of Etruscan, with Mediterranean origin, thus became a decontextualized cultural symbol.

For example, the Flemish Daniël Heinsius, in Emblemata amatoria (1620), rather than to Friendship, returned to bind it to the Imperishable Love, as in the classical era. He returned to use the plane tree too, as in the original Greek epigram. The married vine is the emblem of an eternal love that goes beyond death, with the wording

 

"Ni mesme la mort", not even death.

Heinsius_Emblem_Quaeris_quid_26

It also became the logo of the Elzevier, publishers of Leiden (Holland) from 1580. The current Elsevier publishing house (refounded in the nineteenth century) is the world's largest medical and scientific publisher. Their symbol remains the original one, a life married to a tree, with the meaning of the alliance between learning and literature.

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From the nineteenth century, viticulture became a science and many agricultural treaties flourished, that described in detail the traditional Italian systems. For this part, I referred to the works of two outstanding scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth century, Prof. Ottavio Ottavi and Prof. Domizio Cavazza.

The Italian viticulture of the time, in the center-north, had remained based of that of ancient Rome, with the arbustum italicum (alberata) and of the arbustum gallicum (piantata). These two archetypes, however, had given origin to a myriads of different systems, which (the same scholars admit) were difficult to list in all possible variants. Furthermore, there was a lot of confusion in terms at this point. The term "alberata" was used often to indicate one or the other system.

Especially the elm, maple and poplar were still used. Now we can also understand why.

The ideal, as living tutor, is a plant whit small root system and foliage, because they must not interfere with the development of the vine. The perfect tree is the maple (Acer campestris), the favorite for vines since the ancient Etruscans. It is slow to grow, it has few roots that go deep down and do not interfere with those of the vines. The pruning can model easily its small foliage. It also adapts well to poor and shallow soils.

The elm (Ulmus campestris) remains the most used tree in the north. It has a strong radical expansion but is very long-lived, it produces excellent fodder (leaves) and fagots and wood. It adapts more to the fertile and humid soils of the Po Valley.

The poplar (Populus nigra) was used because of its rapid growth and because it produces fodder and wood. It is not so suitable for the vine, because it has an extensive root system and too dense foliage.

The mulberry (Morus alba) was used above all in Veneto even though it was not suitable. It makes too much competition for the vine. However, it is suitable to put together two businesses: the grapes and the silkworm breeding. However, the introduction of copper treatments at the end of the nineteenth century (which kills the bug) made this coexistence very difficult.

In addition, these trees were used too, to a lesser extent: the willow, the manna ash tree, the ash tree, the dogwood, the lime tree, the hornbeam, the oak, the cherry tree, the olive tree, the walnut and the fig tree.

The simplest system, the old arbustum italicum, was called testucchio. It was widespread especially in Tuscany, but also in the Marche and Lazio, with a slightly different planting and pruning methods. Above all, maples were used, called oppi or loppi in Tuscany (acero, in Italian). Among the testucchi, the winegrowers could also grow low vines, resting them on poles, thus forming a complete row. In the Caserta area, there were similar solutions but with high vines.

 

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The Tuscan "testucchio" after the pruning.
This work by the Florentine painter Raffaello Sorbi shows the married vine (testucchio) of the Tuscan countryside. ("The vine-harvesting party", 1893).
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In the left: a married vine from Frosinone area. On the right: a complete row with mixed systems.

In Abruzzo, the vine-shoots were intertwined to form a large horizontal square, forming the so-called capanne or capannoni.

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In the area of Aversa (near Naples), the cultivation of Asprinio grapes on poplars reached up to 20 meters in height. Note, in the photo, the size of the man on the tree. In the inter-row, the winegrowers grow other species such as hemp, corn, potato and various cereals.

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The "Chianti system" was based on the maple trees, whose branches were pruned to stand horizontally and join those of the neighbors, obtaining a sort of continuous espalier on which the vine climbed.

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The “festoons system” (or "tralciaia" or "pinzana") was typical of the areas of Pisa (Tuscany), Caserta, Naples and the Emilia. The festoons were formed by very long intertwined vine-shoots. Sometimes they had to be hold up by sticks or separated by a crossbar.

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This eighteenth-century work by Jacob Hackert ("Harvest of the past or autumn") shows the grape harvest in Campania from tall trees with a festoons system.

In Emilia it was mainly used the elm, in Romagna the maple, both much lower. In the area of Ferrara, the vines were very high on walnut trees. In these zones, the rows of "married vines" were often on the edge of the fields and along the ditches.

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The "Istrian system" was based on low-grown maples or ash trees, like stumps, from which numerous branches spread out, which were joined to form a circle at a certain height. The vine-shoots stretched up to the circle, then spread out and joined the neighboring trees. This system was used for local varieties such as Terrano, Isolana, Nera tenera and Crevatizza. Prof. Ottavi says that this system was disappearing already at its time.

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In the nineteenth-twentieth century, some new mixed forms evolved from the more traditional ones, with wires and poles together with trees, to try to modernize this type of vine-training system. An example was the "ray system" or Bellussi (from the name of the inventors). It was widespread especially in Veneto. The ray systems presented numerous variations.

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The mixed pergolas consisted of trees with wooden scaffolding and iron wires. They were located in Tivoli area, in Piedmont and in Emilia.

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In any case, in the twentieth century this ancient culture has disappeared.

From 1920, a fungus from Asia decimated the elms (the Dutch elm disease, DED, "grafiosi" in Italian).

In '20s, Prof. Cavazza explained that the gradual disappearance of the "married vines" was due above all to changed technical and economic conditions. He lists the disadvantages of this system with respect to the "dead" tutor (a pole): it takes more time to reach normal production, the trees shade the vine, the grapes mature later, there is greater need for fertilizer (both for the vines and the trees), greater difficulty and expense in pruning and all other work (from treatments to harvest).

Yet he had resisted for a long time even for undoubted advantages, listed by Cavazza himself, as the great longevity of the vineyard. In addition, the tutor trees also give useful products to the farm, such as fodder for animals and faggots. The trees partly protect the vines from frost and hail. Among the trees the winegrowers can cultive other crops... It is simple to understand as these advantages belong however to a promiscuous agriculture, to an old rural world that was not able to exist more.

In fact, above all after the Second World War, the Italian viticulture had a profound transformation. The modern production required a highly specialized viticulture. In this new world, there were no place for the "married vine”, survived for over three thousand years.

If you want to see an Etruscan vineyard, you can come to Guado al Melo: we created it with local wild vines. Alternatively, you can still find one of the above systems in Aversa zone or in some small estates of Tuscany and Emilia Romagna.

Italy has certainly sacrificed much of its rural culture to modernity. The important thing is not to lose its memory, because it is part of our history. This is why a “married vine” is on the label of our wine Atis (Bolgheri DOC Superiore).

Not even death

Atis

Nella prossima puntata scopriremo invece le varietà ed i vini Etruschi, oltre che le modalità di vinificazione.


Wine and the Etruscan (I): the first winegrowers

Wine and the Etruscans is a fascinating theme but little known. When people thinks at the antiquity of Italian wine, they thinks almost exclusively to Rome. Obviously Rome has played a fundamental and extraordinary role in the history of wine, but also the Etruscans have been relevant. Above all, they came first and taught so many things to the Romans.

Why do the Etruscans interest we so much?

Because they were the first inhabitants of our lands and were the first winegrowers in Italy. Millennia ago, therefore, he was here in our place, doing our own work!

But who were the Etruscans? Read below  ... if you already know this part, skip it.

After a territorial decription, we will dedicate ourselves specifically to wine.

 

“... Etruria was so powerful that the fame of it filled not only the land, but the sea as well, and through all of Italy, from the Alps to the Strait of Sicily. “

Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, book I, I c. b.C.

 

 

The Etruscan civilisation was the most impressive in the western Mediterranean before the rise of the Romans, from the 9th century to the 1st century BC (with the final conquest by Rome). Historic Etruria comprised a large part of Tuscany and upper Latium, but it eventually spread as far as Emilia and Campania and all the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Latins gave them the name Etruscans, and the area was called Etruria. They referred to themselves, however, as Rasenna, and their nation as Rasna. They were a clearly defined ethno-linguistic group, specialising in commerce, crafts, and agriculture. While recognizing themselves as a nation, the Etruscans does not constitute a political unit: they were split into independent city-states, the first socio-political model of this kind in Italy. They had an extensive network of relationships with the most important civilizations of the Mediterranean (Greeks, Phoenicians, ...), the other people of Italy, as well as with the continental European populations, such as the Celts.

 

Our territory was characterized by a row of hills parallel to the sea, in the middle of a marshy flat area (the North Maremma), inhospitable and where proliferated malaria. Since prehistoric times the people lived in the hills practicing hunting and gathering wild products. Later, the first permanent settlements arose and thence the first early agricultural societies that gave origin to the Etruscan civilisation.

The great territory wealth was the big mining resources (above all iron), which exploitation initiated from the Bronze Age (12th century BC). In contrast to the large-scale inurbations in southern Etruria, few cities rose in this area, and the populations remained scattered. Three great city-states dominated the coastal area: Pisa, which controlled the northernmost stretches; Volterra dominating the Cecina Valley to the sea; and Populonia in the south. The Etruscans, excellent hydraulic engineers, reclaimed part of marshy plains near the sea, and used it for agriculture.

Our territory, Castagneto Carducci e Bolgheri, was part of city-state of Populonia. Its ancient remains are at few Km from our winery, seaward the charming Gulf of Baratti.

 

Scansione0003 (2)
In the picture: Populonia graphic reconstruction in the VI c. BC (Val di Cornia Parks). The triangle formed by Volterra, Populonia, and Vetulonia, plus the island of Elba, was named Mining Etruria, for its significant mineral resources: copper, lead, silver and above all hematite (that yielded iron). These resources provided the economic engine for Etruscan commercial and cultural development. Populonia, the only Etruscan city by the sea, became the most prominent iron-production site on the coast from the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. The minerals were mined from the near hills and the island of Elba and all the metal workings were centred around the port of the city, tightly integrated into the general Tyrrhenian commerce routes. Once it entered the orbit of Rome (II c. B.C.), these activities continued.

Populonia declined on the Roman period.

decadde come città già in epoca romana. Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, on V c. A.C., passing along the coast with his boat, saw only ruins:

Close at hand Populonia opens up her safe coast,

where she draws her natural bay well inland...

The memorials of an earlier age cannot be recognised:

devouring time has wasted its mighty battlements away.

Traces only remain now that the walls are lost:

under a wide stretch of rubble lie the buried homes.

Let us not chafe that human frames dissolve:

from precedents we discern that towns can die.

Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, 417 AC

De Reditu Suo (About his return), I, 401-414

 

 

Populonia
In the picture: Populonia today. The city began to decline during the Roman era. In the 3rd century AD, Populonia ceased mining operations and fallen off completely. In the 4th century, there remained only ruins. In the Middle Ages, beginning in the 10th century, mineral extraction began anew, utilising mining techniques very similar to those ancient. In the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th, mining started again. The ancient slag heaps that had been deposited in Etruscan times around the gulf of Baratti were re-processed, since they still contained considerable iron resources, left behind by the crude technology of the past. The heaps covered some 10,000 square metres and weighed some 20 million tons. Under several metres of slag emerged the remains of an ancient Etruscan necropolis. Metals mining died out in the late 1970s, as deposits were exhausted, but limestone extraction continues today.

The most important Etruscan site in Castagneto is the Tower of Donoratico, unfortunately not visited because it is located in a private property.

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THE TOWER OF DONORATICO. This archaeological site bears remains from various periods. The oldest belong to an Etruscan settlement (3rd-1st c. BC), likely an outpost of the city of Populonia, set here to defend the coast as well as mineral mining activities inland. The settlement retained its strategic importance during the Roman period. During the Middle Ages, it was a modest village (8th c.), then fortified (9th c.) and then enlarged (13th c.). Legend has it that Conte Ugolino found refuge in the castle after the Battle of Meloria, in 1284. It was later abandoned, although the reasons are not yet clear, in the first decades of the 15th century.

 

So, the Etruscans played a decisive role in the spread of the wine culture in the western world.

They were the first to develop viticulture in Italy introducing their practices into much of the peninsula, from the north (Emilia Romagna) to the south (Campania), Rome included. Great navigators and traders, they came into contact with the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and introduced in the West cultural aspects of wine, as the religious symbolism and ritual consumption in the symposia. They brougth from East also the oriental grape varieties. Finally, they also spread wine and its culture via commercial channels to the people of western Europe who were still ignorant of this beverage, such as the Celts, the German tribes, and the Iberian peoples.

However, we will go into more detail in the next post.

necropoli-baratti
Parco Archeologico di Baratti e Populonia

RECOMMENDED TO VISIT

Parco Archeologico di Baratti e Populonia, loc. Baratti, Piombino.

Collezione Gasparri, Via di Sotto 8, Populonia Alta.

Museo Archeologico del Territorio di Populonia p.za Cittadella 8, Piombino.

Parco Archo-minerario di San Silvestro, via di Sa Vincenzo Sud 34/b, Campiglia M.ma.

Museo del Palazzo Pretorio, via Cavour, Campiglia M.ma.

Museo Archeologico di Cecina, Villa Guerrazzi loc. La Cinquantina, San Pietro in Palazzi.

Museo Civico Archeologico di Rosignano M.mo, Palazzo Bombardieri, va del Castello 24.

Area Archeologica di San Gaetano a Vada.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Castiglioncello, via del Museo 8, Castiglioncello.

Museo Etrusco Guarnacci, Via Don Giovanni Minzoni 15, Volterra.

 

 

 


Raisin wine, Malvasia grapes based, "La volpe e l'uva": natural sweetness

I'm presenting you a new wine, a very little production that we made to have a excellent raisin wine but not too sweet.

I often dislike sweet wines because they are "heavy", quite nauseous. So, Michele and I decided to produce a perfumed and full-body wine, but with a moderate sweetness.

Its aromas are fantastic: white flowers, apricot, cinnamon, aromatic herbs, orange zest, raisin grapes... In mouth, it is full, with a pleasant sweetness. It is very good as aperitif or after-dinner. It is also optimal in pairing with mature or blue cheeses or fois-gras... It is also good pairing with not too sweet desserts, for exemple with desserts with nuts or chocolate.

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la volpe e l'uva

Why the name "La volpe e l'Uva" (The fox and the grapes)?
Do you remember the famous fable of Phaedrus " The Fox and the Grapes " ? In the summer nights we often see foxes in our vineyard. However, rather than on the moral end of the fable, we focus on the eager gaze of the fox, the intense desire for that perfect fruit, unique and precious (as this wine). I made the label thinking to this idea: a great desire that we want to satisfy. The bicolor box is very beautyfull.

Why "natural sweetness"?
Because this wine is produced in artisanl way, without added sugars. Michele made it with an ancient and traditional method, called "mistella". A little portion of the grapes are picked-up and dried on trellis in a cool and airy place. Then they get pressed in a wooden manual press, and added to the must in fermentation of the fresh grapes.  The addition of this concentrate juice causes the arrest of the process, leaving a natural sugar residue. It was aged for 4 years in oak not-new barrels.

 

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Malvasia is a traditional grapes, often used in Italy to produce sweet wines. We have few plants of Malvasia, so we produced only 593 bottles.

 

 

 


A network for "conscious travelers", to discover the cultural identity of a territory

In winter a project was presented us, aimed at creating a tourism brand, focused on enhancing the culture of the territory. Those who know us (or know Guado al Melo) certainly know that it seemed made for us!

We compiled the membership form and now we have the news that we have been selected to be part of the pilot project!

Here is a summary of what it is:

 

Interreg IT FR marittimo mappa Nuts 3WHERE. The project is centered on a strip of Mediterranean Europe, joined by similar natural environments and cultural continuity: the Italian coastal strip of Tuscany, Liguria and Sardinia, the French Mediterranean coast and Corsica.

WHAT. The project aims to give birth to a network of small local businesses, accumulated by deep territorial and cultural roots. The idea is to present a particular path to "conscious travelers", ie people looking for non-trivial tourist experiences, eager to meet local realities capable of deepening the narration of their territories, savoring real and unique experiences. The network integrates places of memory and nature (such as museums, cities of art, parks) but also places of the human present, represented by itineraries of taste, typical and artisanal productions.

SUSTAINABILITY. The realities that become part of the project must respond to the fundamental principles of cultural, environmental and social sustainability.

THE PROJECT. For now we are still at the beginning. Among the many candidates, 80 (of the territories indicated) were selected , chosen for their particular correspondence to the spirit and purpose of the project. These pilot companies, including us, will now be accompanied in a certification process and (if necessary) adaptation to all the required standards. After that the project can be opened to other realities and, at the same time, promoted to the public.

 

The project is called S.MAR.T.I.C., acronym of «Sviluppo Marchio Territoriale Identità Culturale», "Development of Territorial Cultural Identity Brand". It is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund from the INTERREG Italy-France Maritime Program 2014-2020. http://interreg-maritime.eu/it/web/s.mar.t.i.c./progetto

The reference for the territory of Livorno is the cooperative "Itinera Progetti e Ricerche" gbenucci@itinera.info +39 0586 894563 www.itinera.info/blog/

logo SMARTIC


Criseo wine conquers all: even "La Cucina Italiana" magazine recommends Criseo 2016

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Mediterranean rabbit:

1,5 Kg rabbit

200 g white wine, other for raisins

50 g butter

20 g pine nuts

10 dried tomatoes

Desalted capers

Taggiasca olives

Raisin

Laurel

Rosemary

Extravirgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

 

Soak 2 tablespoons of raisins in white wine for 10 minutes.

Brown the rabbit pieces for about 10 minutes in a large pan with a little oil, salt and pepper. Add the butter and, after 3-5 minutes, 80-100 g of white wine, and  after 2-3 minutes the rest of wine.

Then lower the heat to a minimum, add laurel and rosmary, close the lid and cook for about 20-25 minutes. Then add a little water (if necessary) and cook again for 10-15 min.

Meanwhile coarsely chopped 2 tablespoons of desalted capers, 2 tablespoons of pitted olives, the dried tomatoes, and the squeezed raisins. Add a little oil and the pine nuts to the mixture.

At the end of cooking, add the Mediterranean mixture to the rabbit, stir, close and let it rest for about 10 minutes.

 


Are you ready for Vinitaly?

We are ready! We will be at Pav. 7, stand B5, c/o our distributor for Italy CuzziolGrandiVini. We'll wait for you at our table, Michele Scienza and Annalisa Motta, as usual.

Thre will be the current vintages of our wine, plus these news:

airone
L'Airone Vermentino 2017
Criseo Bolgheri Bianco 2016
Criseo Bolgheri Bianco 2016

 

Jassarte 2008 edizione speciale 10 anni
Jassarte 2008 special edition 10 years

Fermentation in history 2: “It is rarefied to Spirit”

First interpretations on the fermentation process itself appear only in the era of alchemists-scientists, the seventeenth century. It is the historical moment in which the investigation of the world becomes more profound, though still mixing irrational aspects with burning science.

The understanding of this process began with the observation that a substance is formed by fermentation: alcohol (even if it was not called that at the time). The identification of this substance has its roots in distillation and alchemy.

alchimia-xiilografia
Alchemy was a mixture of practical knowledge, primitive experimental science, mystical and magical aspects. It was born in ancient Greek and Egypt and developed mainly in the Middle Ages, from the eighth century, first in the Arab culture and then in the Christian West. He paved the way for the first chemical knowledge.
Constantine the African lecturing to the school of Salerno
The Schola Medica Salernitana (ancient Medical School in Salerno, Italian town near Naples) was the first and most important medical institution in Europe, anticipating the following universities. Medicine was practiced and taught on the basis of the knowledge of Greek and Latin works and, from the 10th century, also Arabic ones. The origins are lost in legend, perhaps with the first settlements of Benedictine monks in the eighth-century. Its heyday took place between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Then it gradually decayed, supplanted by the nascent universities of Padua, Bologna and Montpellier.

The oldest stills date back to the 2nd century BC, found in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. In ancient times they were used only to produce essences for perfumed balms or for medical purposes. The distillation of alcohol, to produce hydroalcoholic solutions, probably began with the Arab alchemists Rhazes (Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī) and Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) between the 10th and 11th centuries. This knowledge was collected and disseminated in the West especially by the Schola Medica Salernitana, from the tenth century onwards.

In the thirteenth century the German philosopher and bishop Albertus Magnus describes in his works the substance "aqua ardens" obtained from the distillation of wine, so light to float on oil. Aqua ardens, burning water, and spirit of wine are among the most used terms for centuries to indicate alcohol or a more or less concentrated hydroalcoholic solution. Spirit derives from the Latin "spiritus" which means breath, vital spirit and, by extension, exhalation. The word alcohol will come later. Alcoholic beverages were indicated in this period with the generic term of aqua vitae (water of life), whatever the starting material.

The first work that describes in detail how to produce aqua vitae (with a double fermentation system) is a part of the Vatican code Consilia (1276). It is by the Florentine doctor Taddeo Alderotti, one of the most famous of his time, also mentioned in Paradise by Dante (12:82-85). I

Initially distillation of aqua vitae was carried out only in monasteries but, within a century, became increasingly popular. It was widespread mainly thanks to the treaty of the Paduan doctor Giovanni Michele Savonarola (1385-1468), the "De conficienda Aqua Vitae", which explained how to prepare it (he is the grandfather of the famous Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola).

Then by empirical distillation practice, increasingly perfected, it was born the identification of the substance that characterizes the wine from the grape-juice. Based on this knowledge, in the seventeenth century, we find the first attempts to interpret fermentation.

The seventeenth century is an era that represents a important break in the history of humanity and science, thanks to the birth of the experimental method. This will allow to overcome the principle of authority over time and to abandon gradually  the mystical and magical aspects of alchemy.

scientific method
This picture summarizes in a very simplified way the different approaches to the scientific knowledge of history. Galileo Galilei was one of the main exponents of this incredible revolution that clearly separates what is science from what is only opinion or belief. It is not that before him no one had ever thought about doing experiments, but with him this way of acting becomes systematic and precise. In ancient times the knowledge of the philosophers was essentially speculative, that is based on reasoning: this system is certainly effective for several aspects but extremely limiting to study nature, the world. From the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century the principle of authority prevailed, against which Galileo clashed hard. Any discussion was ended by authoritative sources, such as religious ones (Bible or writings by the Church Fathers) or cultural references such as Aristotle. Galileo and others introduced the experimental method. According to Galileo, observing and experimenting means interrogating the great book of nature. He wrote: "... Our discourses have to be around the sensible world, and not on a paper one."

Naturally it was not a clean break. For a few more centuries science remained in a middle world, poised between rationality and magical thought, with different figures of cutting-edge scientists and many still linked to the past. Even those scientists, which we remember today for important discoveries, still maintained (to a greater or lesser extent) some magical or irrational aspects.

V0005184 Angelo Sala. Line engraving. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Angelo Sala. Line engraving. Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Angelo Sala is considered the founder of the sugar chemistry. It was defined by Haller in the eighteenth century as "primus chemicorum, qui desiit ineptire": the first of the chemists who stopped being silly.

Returning to our topic, at the end of the sixteenth century the physician and chemist Angelo Sala (1576 - 1637) made the first studies on the formation of alcohol from fermenting musts.

 

Shortly afterwards the Flemish doctor and philosopher Johannes Baptiste van Helmont (1580-1644), disciple (and critic) of Paracelsus, admirer of the new experimental method, was among the first to hypothesize that fermentation was a chemical process, mediated by not well specified intermediaries. For van Helmont (and others of his time) reality consists of "minima naturalia", very small elements, corpuscles at the base of all matter. Chemical reactions, which he call indistinctly "fermentations" or "effervescences", are additions or subtractions of these particles. At the basis of the reactions there is a spiritual principle that operates through "ferments", unidentified mediators.

In addition to this, van Helmont identified that the gas released during fermentation is the same that is obtained by burning coal, at the time called “gas silvestre”, sylvan gas (because it derives from the combustion of plant matter). Today we call it carbon dioxide.

mice-reipe
Van Helmont can be a valid example of the difficult transition to a complete scientific thought. According to him, the stars do not influence the men's life. However, he maintained in his writings the belief that mice were born from dirt and sweat. He also described an proving experiment about this. Today he is remembered above all for his fundamental contribution to the chemistry of gases: he was the first to identify the gaseous state of matter and to understand that the air is composed of a series of different gases. He coined the word gas himself, starting with the Greek chaos (due to the chaotic movement of the particles of this state of matter).

Another exponent of this world in the balance between nascent science and alchemy is Nicolas Lémery (1645-1715), French chemist who, in the second half of the seventeenth century, considered five substances at the base of nature: Water, Spirit, Oil, Salt and Earth. His work "Course of Chemistry" (1687) was a great success and was long considered a reference text.  we can find in it a detailed explanation of the process of alcoholic fermentation.

 

According to Lémey, vinification consists in the transformation of a part of the must (Oil) into alcohol (Spirit), thanks to an action of "rarefaction" by the Acid Salts.

Nicolas_Lémery
Lémery tries to explain what happens in fermentation but does not question why or who is responsible for this phenomenon. He too is still a bit alchemist, speaking about elements of matter. Yet, in the most theoretical part of the text, he affirms that science is the only way to explore the visible, without resorting to spiritualism or magic: "... the way in which Nature makes use of its operations, which is perfectly explained by the Chemistry". He also believes in the concept of working on demonstrable facts: "... and I do not care about any Opinion that is not based on Experience".

For Oil he means the part that remains non-distillable, while the Spirit is the part that can be distilled and flammable. For Salts he means both those that remain encrusted on the walls of the barrels (tartaric acid) and those that precipitate on the bottom at the end of the vinification.

494px-Still_Life_with_Grapes_and_Other_Fruits_by_Luca_Forte,_Getty_Center
Still life with grapes by Luca Forte (1630)

Lémery,  with his language (sometimes obscure for us), begins to identify different elements present in the juice and in the wine, even if with wrong roles in fermentation. This explanation, however, will remain for a long time as a model. In fact we find it (much the same) in the "Dictionary of Chemistry" by Pierre Joseph Macquer of 1766.

In addition to this, however, he reasons that wine no longer has the sweet taste of juice. Furthermore, he says, fermentation takes place more easily and produces more spirit substance if grapes are ripe. The unripe and ripe grapes change in flavor: the first is more acidic and not sweet at all, the other is very sugary. Therefore he concludes that the ripening of grapes (and other fruit) consists in the accumulation of sugars, which become dominant. From here he deduces that the material that undergoes alcoholic fermentation is precisely sugar.

Macquer continues by explaining some traditional practices to increase the sugar in the grapes by concentrating them by drying. He also mentions the practice of adding sugar directly to the must. He also points out that as early as the beginning of the century the Dutch doctor Herman Boerhaave (1668-1738) indicated that sugar is an effective means of promoting fermentation. The practice of sugaring was then widespread among the French wine producers in the early decades of the nineteenth century, thanks above all to the chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal (wine sugaring in French is called "chaptalisation").

He writes, however, why it happen is still unknown and not easy to discover.

 

The first to describe clearly what happens during fermentation was Antoine-Laurent de Lavoiser (1743-1794) in his “Elementary chemistry treatise" of 1789. Lavoisier is one of those figures who changed history. He is recognized as the "father of modern chemistry" who, thanks to him, completely detached himself from alchemy.

530366d154e5400ff9dcb91b9a5e948d--antoine-lavoisier-mathematicians
Lavoisier laid the foundations of modern chemistry: he discovered the role of oxygen in the combustion and oxidation of metals (dismissing definitively the alchemical theory of phlogiston), he enunciated the principle of mass conservation in reactions ("Rien ne se perd, rien ne se se crée" "Nothing is lost, nothing is created"),he founded modern chemistry on a quantitative basis, introducing the use of precision instruments, he reformed the nomenclature of chemical substances. During the revolution, Lavoiser did not want to leave France despite being a nobleman and had a tax collection agency. He was tried by a revolutionary tribunal to whom he asked for pardon. It seems that the judge replied that "the Revolution does not need scholars". So he was guillotined in Paris in 1794, at the age of 51. The international and scientific society of the time was shocked by what happened. The sentence that the mathematician Lagrange said when he learned of his death has gone down in history "It took them only an instant to cut off this head, and one hundred years might not suffice to reproduce its like".

Lavoisier begins to use the word alcohol and no more spirit of wine. In fact, he thought this term was not adequate because this substance could be formed not only from wine, but also from cider or sugar.

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Detail of the famous portrait David made to Lavoisier and his wife. Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, wife of Lavoiser, was his collaborator, translated scientific works for him from English and illustrated his books. For many scholars Marie-Anne Paulze could be one of the many "hidden" scientists in history, lived in an era (and in a social class) that did not recognize her as this because woman.

The word alcohol comes from the Arabic al-ko-ol. Originally it referred to the fine and black powder that women used to make up their eyes. From here, in Arabian alchemy, it was used to refer to any very fine powdered compound and so it also passed into the Western Middle Ages. It was then used to indicate the purest essence of a substance. It seems that the first to use the word alcohol in the modern sense was Paracelsus (Theopharst Bombast von Hohenheim, 1493-1541), the best known alchemist of his time. Lavoisier introduced it, however, into the common scientific use. In fact he is also remembered for his important reform of the nomenclature of chemical substances, at the base of the modern one. He wanted to go from the obscure and vague terms of alchemical origin to others, more concise and rational ones.

Returning to fermentation, Lavoiser, based on the knowledge accumulated up to his time, described it roughly as:

grape juice = carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) + alcohol

levure

He experimentally reproduced the process with sugar dissolved in lukewarm water, to then estimate in a very precise way the quantities of fermented substances and the products obtained, also determining their composition. He was the first to write a chemical reaction as an equation. The measures were not exactly precise (given also the limits of the instruments of the time) but it was a real revolution for chemistry.

 

 

 

He described how the sugar split into two parts, and that the fermentation consisted in the oxygenation of one of them, with the formation of a combustible substance, alcohol. He showed that the transformation was not quantitatively exact because other secondary products are also formed.
The formula of the reaction was then defined quantitatively more precisely in 1810 by the French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850), thanks to the further improvement of the measuring instruments.

 

formula

 

 

Then the chemists more and more refined the knowledge on the reaction, coming to define it with extreme precision. Today it is schematized as follows.

95be5e3a235711613dca5377ed13113aa181c4a7

dandolo
The Venetian Vincenzo Dandolo (1758-1819) was an eminent figure of his era: chemist, politician, agronomist, with very advanced ideas.

To get to this formula, however, still lacks a fundamental passage: at the time of Lavoisier there wasn't still organic chemistry!

In fact, nobody has yet respond to that fundamental question that we have taken with us on this journey through the centuries: who does it and why?

 

This question also arose spontaneously by Vincenzo Dandolo, an Italian (contemporary) translator of the works of Lavoisier who, in addition to translating, also made numerous annotations to the text. Lavoisier in fact, describing his experiments, tells about using brewer's yeast. Dandolo notes that the latter is formed by the sediment of the beer. He says that the fermentation is not well determined. He asks "why, how does brewer's yeast work? ... So the yeast becomes essential substance to make a complete fermentation, but though there are water, heat and sugar ".

 

So was yeast already known? No, this term is used to indicate something to facilitate fermentation empirically . Even from the ancient times, it was seen that by adding sediments of fermentation (or a bit of leavened bread dough in the case of bread making) the process started with greater ease. However, at the end of the eighteenth century, although having generally defined what happens, there was still no idea why.

Dandolo asks again: "What fermenting principle introduces this substance, or any other suitable to promote this first notable alteration ...? Would this phenomenon refer to the nitrogen that the yeast 8e13651d-338c-441e-954f-c3eafa587174contains? If so, how does nitrogen work? "

He says that the yeasts traditionally used are of two species:

  1. "highly putrescible bodies containing nitrogen" (he write how some facilitate fermentation by throwing pieces of meat into the vat; he also tells how the Chinese add excrement to stimulate the fermentation of a decoction of oats and barley .
  2. "Bodies that contain a lot of oxygen like acids, neutral salts, clay, metal oxides, etc."

Beyond these aneducts and theories, for many at the time (as for the same Dandolo) "yeast" was some chemical compound. Only Pasteur, in the second half of the nineteenth century, put an end to this long diatribe, identifying it in a living organism.

However, Pasteur's work was not born from nothing and it was a very difficult and very controversial goal.

(to be continued…)

 

 

 


Next Wine Events

Here there are the next appointments where you can meet us and tasting our wines.

ProWein, in Duesseldorf (DE), 18-20 March 2018. Halle 16 / C22.  C/o our importer Consiglio Vini.

Vinitaly, in Verona (I), 15-18 April 2018. Pav. 7 / Stand B5. C/0 our italian distributor Cuzziol GrandiVini.

Mostra Mercato dei Vignaioli FIVI, in  Rome (I), 19-20 May 2018. Teatro 10, Cinecittà.  Opening hours: 11.00-19.00.  https://www.fivi.it/mercato-roma-2018-fivi-cinecitta-va-scena-territorio/


Fermentation in history 1: "It boils by its nature!"

440px-Masa_fermentando

After the post about fermentation, especially on the role of yeasts, I invite you on a little journey through history, to discover what people thought in the past about this crucial passage and how mankind came to understand it.

 

Fermentation has been used by man for at least 10,000 years for the production of beverages and foods: wine, beer, bread, yoghurt, cheese ... However, for millennia, humanity has done it without knowing how and why.

The word fermentation is ancient, derives from the Latin fermentum, from the root of the verb fervere which means to move, to boil. It arises from the observation of what is clearly visible: the bread leaven, swell and expand, the wine (or beer) boils.

But what did people think in the past of this phenomenon?

If we look for references in agrarian texts, from antiquity to the nineteenth century we don’t try hypothesis or questions about why and how it happens. Rather there are indications of practical work, useful to favor the process. This is natural: the agrarian texts in the past were mostly aimed at workers (of a certain rank), in particular the farmers. In the most ancient ages the problem is completely ignored (at least, as far as we know). In the texts of the Seven-Nineteenth century the whole process is cleared with the little phrase: "(the grape-juice) boils by its nature". So, it just happens, we're not asking why! These questions were left more to the philosophers and then to the scientists, but we will meet them later.

1200px-Lucius_Junius_Moderatus_Columella

One of the most detailed agrarian texts of antiquity is the De re rustica by Columella (65 AD), "On Agriculture", which collects the sum of all the Roman agricultural knowledge. It is a text so well done and precise that it is considered by experts to be the first real agronomic treatise in history. It was so important that it remained the main reference for agronomy until the eighteenth century!

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella lived in the 1st century AD, originally from Cadiz (present-day Spain). After a first military career in Syria, he retired to agricultural life in his estates in central Italy. He recounts that he was influenced in his interest in agriculture by his uncle, Marcus Columella, whom he describes as a cunning man and a great farmer. So his writings are not just a literary work (like other texts on agriculture at the time) but derive from direct experience, as well as from a curious mind that already appears very scientific.

Gianfrancesco_Poggio_Bracciolini_-_Imagines_philologorum
The work of Columella (and other very important ones of antiquity) came to us thanks to the Tuscan humanist Giovanni Francesco Poggio Bracciolini. As the secretary of the anti-pope John XXIII, he often traveled between France and Germany at the beginning of the fifteenth century, above all to follow the Council of Constance (1414-1418). During these trips he visited several Swiss and German monasteries and explored their libraries, finding Latin texts that no one had transcribed and circulated, and which he saved from oblivion.

Columella loves the agricultural life that he considers morally healthier than that of the city, as he tells in his work. According to him the farmer must directly manage his own farm and must have an excellent preparation on his work, based on the study of valid texts. It shows a particular sensitivity (compared to its times) on the use of servile labor.

In the parts of the work dedicated to winemaking (much smaller than the space offered on the vineyard works part), we discover that Columella don't explain what happens in the fermenting dolium (pl. dolia: the terracotta pot used to make wine). Yet he gives many sensible advice (in light of our current knowledge) on how to work to ensure the successful of fermentation. In particular, he insists on the necessity of absolute cleaning of the cellar and of the work tools, above all of the containers where the juice and the wine will be placed. In fact, today we know that hygiene is the first fundamental requirement for producing a good wine, to avoid polluting it with micro-organisms responsible for many serious problems, as acetification, bad smells,  turbidity, etc.

Columella remembers (as every good wine cellarer does today) that the preparation for the harvest must start at least a month before, with the thorough cleaning of each tool. Also he remember that the wine press must be well cleaned after each use. "The cellar must be cleansed from all grime, perfuming it with good smells, so that it is not offended by stinking or sour smell”.

mosaico romano che rappresenta l'impeciatura interna di un vaso.
Roman mosaic representing the covering inside of a amphora with tar.

The dolia (large earthenware vases in which vinification takes place), underground or not, must be cleaned and prepared by scraping the inner pitch layer of the previous year, after having softened it with heat, and then carefully spreading again.

The following advices mainly concerns indications of "condiments" to be added to the wine (resin, sea water, etc.) for the conservation of wine. I recall that, in any case, the wines of antiquity were very different from those of today. The problems of winemaking produced wines with tastes that today we consider defects. The common use of serving them mixed with water, aromas, spices, honey and much more just served to cover and correct these inevitable problems.

 

 

 

This sketch reconstructs a Roman cellar during crushing and pressing. The grapes are pressed with feet in a masonry tank. The pomace then are immediately pressed. Here it is represented a lever press, also known as "catonian" press, because described for the first time by Cato. According to Columella, all the equipment and the cellar itself had to carefully be washed before the harvest and, above all the press, even after each use.

 

museo di Toso torchio di Plinio
The second type of Roman press is the direct-screw or press of Pliny (also in this case it takes its name from the author who first described it). The Catonian and Pliny’s presses remained in use for all the following centuries, more or less such as those of the Romans. Over time the direct-screw press took over from the lever one, too cumbersome. The leap in quality took place with the nineteenth century, with the transition from wood to iron gears and with the creation of systems that facilitated the action on the screw, requiring less and less physical effort. In the picture there is an ancient singol-screw press (identical to those of the Roman era) in the museum of the Toso winery.

 

doli interrati ad Ostia antica
Buried "dolia" in a cellar at the archaeological area of ancient Ostia. The "dolium" was a large earthenware vase in which the wine fermented and also where it was stored later.

 

Dolium_From_Roman_Villa,_Minori
Roman "dolium" found in a Roman villa at Minori (Campania). The lesser value wine was preserved in the "dolia" and hence took for consumption, barely limpid. It was called "vinum doliare". The most precious one was poured into amphoras after being treated for heat preservation, or with the addition of sea water or smoking, etc. This was called "vinum amphorarium". The amphorae were also used for shipping.

 

We know from more literal sources that in the ancient period it was common to attract good fortune on the harvest with augural rituals. In particular the Vinalia Rustica are celebrated on August 19th, i.e. auspicious rites for the next harvest (very similar to the blessings of the vineyards and fields that our priests did until a short time ago). Cicero, in "De Devinatione" cites the auguratio vineta, auspicious practices that traces back to the augur Attius Navius, at the time of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.

Secondo Plinio (nella sua opera Naturalis Historia) era d'uso porre nelle vigne un grappolo finto
According to Pliny (in his work "Naturalis Historia") there was the use of placing in the vineyards a fake bunch, a sort of fetish that would must attract damage on itself, thus preserving the true fruits (in the image: Pompeii fresco).

We can’t help but imagine that even the delicate phase of fermentation had its share of rituals. And yet Columella does not tell us much in this sense, hinting only rapidly at the sacrifice due to Liber and Libera, to whom the fermenting vats are to be consecrated. For him, who seems to be a curious and very rational agronomist, it is more important that "we do not go away during the harvest from the wine press or from the cellar, so that juice is clean and pure ...".

Liber e Libera in un affresco di Pompei
Liber and Libera from a fresco of Pompeii. Liber and Libera were very ancient Roman divinities, linked to the rural world. It is believed that Libera was originally a sort of Mother Goddess and Liber was her son-vegetation. Later, the male figure took on greater importance, also taking on the epithet of Pater (father), linked to fertility rites, seasonal cycles, wine, the entrance of young people into adulthood ... Instead, after the introduction of the figure of Dionysus-Bacchus from Greece, there will sometimes be a sort of partial overlap between the two figures.

If we go to the Middle Ages, the situation does not change much. As in the late empire, there are no longer terracotta pots, but wood predominates in the cellars. However, winemaking techniques are practically the same, sometimes even with poorer techniques, especially in the early Middle Ages.

The greatest texts of medieval agronomy are above all those from Arab culture. Between the VIII and XIV centuries there is a great attention to agriculture: we count about fifty works dedicated to this field. These works flourish in all the lands under the Arab influence, in particular al-Andalus, the current Andalusia (Spain), which had a golden age in that period. For the Arab culture of the time, agriculture is a profession that requires specific knowledge. Some Andalusian texts reports agriculture as a profession (san 'a), but also as a science ('ilm) and an art (fann). In the work of al-Tignārī ("Book of the splendor of the garden and the delight of the mind") it is written: “anyone who has the aptitude, has the duty to devote himself to learning the science he needs to practice his profession. Those who are deprived of this attitude, must instead resort to the advice of the wise for everything related to their crops or the products of other trades”.

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The production of wine in Andalusia was so wide and widespread that once, in a moralizing impetus, the king al-Hakam II wanted to eradicate all the vines. He stopped when someone told him that if he eliminated the vines, people would have made wine with figs.

Unfortunately these texts do not speak us about wine, as it is already the Muslim era. However, they dedicate large parts to the cultivation of grapes, especially for fresh or dried consumption. Their sources are different depending on the works: some draw inspiration from classical Roman texts (above all Pliny and Columella), others from the Byzantines or ancient Mesopotamian operas. However we know, from historical and literary sources, that wine production in the viticultural territories had continued even after the passage under Arab rule. Mostly (and officially) it was carried out by communities of other religions and a small part for pharmaceutical purposes. In reality there was also a production of people of Muslim religion. The important thing was that it was not ostentatious. We know their winemaking techniques by other ways, but without sufficient details about our basic theme, fermentation. On this very interesting chapter, we will return in a next post.

 

Returning to the West, the only agrarian text of a certain importance is the "Ruralium Commodorum Books XII" of the Bolognese Pietro De Crescenzi (1305), based for many parts on the Latin writings, above all Columella. De Crescenzi also describes very well the phases prior to winemaking, such as the decision of the time of the harvest and the importance of cleaning the cellar, and then the subsequent ones (conservation). It does not mention the fermentation itself, but he explain how to try to remove the defects due to alterations.

025b
The quotes of De Crescenzi's work in the text are taken from this edition which is part of our library. It is from 1561, published in Venice by Francesco Sansovino, who is also the translator (from the original Medieval Latin to Italian).

In general the author abounds with empirical advice, sometimes reasonable for us (sometimes not). In the most difficult phases, such as the alterations of the wine, which seem to go beyond the human understanding of the time, arriving as terrible as inevitable fatal events, magical and superstitious aspects increase. These parts (that will serve me as a link to talk about superstitions in winemaking), were certainly already present in the Roman agricultural world and will remain for centuries until almost to our days. Middle Ages wasn't a darker period of many others!

But, why is wine altered? So the author explains it, in a rather obscure way (I did not find a translation in English and it is not easy to do for his archaic language and the unclear meaning of this sentence; so, it is a very free translation): "Due to its corruptible watery nature on the vine or in the vat, wine is corrupted and gone off by various causes as the strange heat. If you take off a little dregs or wine with sediment, put it in the container and then don't open it. It would turn into mold, which infects wine. In addition to this, every other wine placed there is spoiled. And if this wine is put in a dolium and mixes with other wine, it infects it and converts it into its corrupt nature." We know that the alterations of wine are caused by microorganisms, by oxidation or, on the lees , also for reductive phenomena. The author, obviously without knowing why, understands that it is something that happens inside, above all when wine stay long on the dregs. His considerations on the fact of not infecting a good wine with one gone bad are also important.

 

Illustrazione antica dell'opera di de Crescenzi.
Ancient illustration of De Crescenzi's work.

Again: "In addition, if you put the good wine, powerful and very sweet and body, during hot weather in a non-full and not closed tank, heat and damp evaporate, cold and the dry remain and wine becomes vinegar". The vinegar taste, which (as we know) derives above all from the action of acetic bacteria, for the author is a physical phenomenon (and unclear). However, he correctly understands the danger to let a tank open and not-full  (causing contact with oxygen which, we know, facilitates the development of acetic bacteria). So, he suggests the best working methods.

"Wine dà la volta (may be "tourne" disease? It is a bacterial alteration of the wine, very common in the past) and it is more easily corrupted when there is the sunset of Pleiades, in the summer solstice, in the heat of the Dog (a constellation), when it is too hot or too much frost, during the great rains, in too many winds, for earthquakes, for thunders, when roses or vines bloom ". Practically, wine alteration can occur to every particular event that "disturbs" in some way the vinification. Some listed aspects are certainly true: changes in temperature can affect what happens in the tanks. A little less other events.

This belief, regarding the fact that certain events may disturb the winemaking, are found in many rural cultures of the past, in different parts of the world (both for wine and for beer). The popular imagination has contributed to the birth of a rich and extensive casuistry, mixing intuitions of real facts (better to avoid the sudden changes in temperature) to fantastic events.

Senza titolo-41

At the base is the idea that something is happening (people can see and hear it !) But is incomprehensible. Instinct leads to reverence: perhaps, if nothing disturbing happens, everything can go well... What happens, who acts? Spirits, demons, magical entities? Something is operating and so it's forbidden to make noise, its better walking slowly, whispering, it's forbidden to knock on the vats or barrels, to let doors or windows open , ... Every territory has his stories about it. Superstition also generates terrible warnings to prevent inappropriately behavior: if a person knocks on a vat or a barrel, thus making the wine bad, he risks losing his finger or hand. It was also believed that the cellar should be kept closed to prevent evil spirits or witches or black cats from negatively influencing the process. Many other situations could be bad, like women with menstruation, who must not approach the vats. According to some peasant cultures the outcome of winemaking also is a premonitory sign of the family's destinies. If it is not good, troubles are coming, if there are serious alterations, there could be misfortunes.

But returning to De Crescenzi, what are the remedies for the alterations of the wine? Here there is a very long list. Some practices described to prevent problems (or solve them in the early stages) are adequate, such as wine racking or keeping vats well filled and closed. When the damage is done (and even today it is almost impossible to remedy) the author lists instead a little more imaginative interventions, such as various kinds of concoctions to add to the wine, based on herbs or other. Certainly these don't change the destiny of wine, as the author suggests, but perhaps they are more useful to cover bad smells or tastes (in the medieval period, as in the antiquity, it is a common use the correction of wines with spices, herbs, honey or other). It is also suggested the use of “magical” plants, such as the Clematis vitalba (old man's beard) which, if placed at the base or above the cask, should prevent the wine from altering. The most curious is a sort of propitiatory rite linked to the religious sphere: an apple must be placed in the container, with a rolled-up leaflet in it: "GVSTATE ET VIDETE QVONIAM CHRISTVS SVAVIS EST DOMINVS". (Taste and see that Christ the Lord is good).

Vintage Moon Phases Diagram This print features a reproduction of by Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century German Jesuit scholar and polymath.
Phases of the moon by Athanasius Kircher (XVII sec.)

Of the beliefs mentioned by De Crescenzo, the most widespread, the most fascinating and one of the hardest to die, is the one that binds the wine to the lunar phases. According to the author, the harvest must be done during the waning moon, while the decanting with a crescent moon, otherwise the wine becomes vinegar. For example, 500 years later we find the same beliefs, as Gaetano Cantoni reported in his "Complete Agriculture Treaty" (1855) : "According to some, the moon would also influence the fermentation of manure, and consequently the dunghill should rather be turned around in the last days of the moon, because in this period less quantity of useful ingredients would dispersed, and they would remain ordered for fermentation, favored by the first quarters of the following moon. The same thing would happen for wine fermentation: about it there are the proverb that the wine made in two moons is clarified with difficulty or never ". This belief has remained until almost our days in rural culture (and not only).

Gaetano_Cantoni
The Milanese agronomist Gaetano Cantoni (1815-1887). He was among the great personalities of his time who struggled tenaciously to renew agrarian teaching in Italy, opening it up to the most modern knowledge. At that time, beyond the cultural limits of the peasant world, the more popular books among the landowners totally ignored the advances of the sciences of the time (like the works of Filippo Re and Berti Pichot), still advocating an archaic and backward agriculture and knowledge).

These beliefs derive from the magical thought that anthropologicals have called "sympathetic magic". One of its most important principles is that of similarity. It is based on a banal mental association whereby the similar calls the similar or where something that symbolizes a certain action has influence on it. In this conception the crescent moon is bound to all those actions or situations in which there is something that grows or has to develop or move. Instead the waning moon assumes a link with everything that decreases, which must stop or die. Therefore all the phases of agricultural harvest that involve the cutting, the death of the plant or the crushing (as for the grape), must be done in the waning moon. Instead, an action like the pouring, a movement, must be done in the crescent moon.

However, there is no need to go too far in time, these beliefs are still alive today. Magical thinking is subtle and powerful. Sometimes it is not possible to avoid it even through culture or centuries of research and scientific discoveries. The spontaneous question is: why have these beliefs survived for so long?

 

We must think, as described in the medieval text, that in the production of wine the magic-superstitious rituals are never done alone. They are always accompanied by good empirical practices that can lead to positive outcomes. Here, however, humanity is divided into two categories. People with a rational mind tend to think that it was good work that produced good results and focused on that. From this mental setting, over the centuries science was born. Other people instead are brought to focus their attention more on the fact that the magic has worked. Furthermore, often people makes talismanic gesture, thinking "it doesn't hurt"! And so these beliefs are perpetuated over the centuries.superstizione2

And with our knowledge of the last centuries? It seems absurd, but for some it may be easier to make sense of the simple mental correlations required by magical similitude rather than to understand the chemical or physical or physiological concepts behind certain good work practices. And then, the most important consideration of all: we like these stories!

They are beautiful, poetic, they use evocative images and words. These stories are fascinating and seductive. Also for this reason, over the centuries they have conquered and continue to this day, becoming also powerful marketing strategies of some sellers (more astute or more naive?) .

After this digression into the superstitions surrounding the winemaking, we arrive at the age of the alchemists. Thus we discover that here begin to appear the first interpretations of the real fermentation process.

(to be continued ....)

 


Our new brochure

Here the are the project that I realised for our big brochure.

First peges are dedicated to us, Guado al Melo's staff and owners.

brochure interno1-pag.1brochure pag.2-3

Here there are the presentation of our territory.

brochure pag.4-5

About Guado al Melo, where it is, the vineyards's map, ...brochure pag.6-7brochure pag. 8-9

About our way to manage the works in vineyard

brochure pag. 10-11brochure pag. 12-13

 

Our underground and sustainable cellar, the museum about wine history and culture...

brochure pag. 14-15brochure pag. 16-17brochure pag. 18-19

Noi we are inside the cellar. We present our way to make wine, based on artisanality and sustainbility.

brochure pag. 20-21brochure pag. 22-23

 

At the end, wines description

brochure pag. 24-25brochure pag. 26-27brochure pag. 28-29brochure pag. 30-31brochure pag. 32-intern.3

copertina 4


About yeast (a complicated topic !) 2

Where did Saccharomyces come from, then?

Research has shown that the best habitat of the Saccharomyces is the winery and not the vineyard. It settles with contaminations which origin is difficult to identify (it may come from the external environment, from tools, from yeasts brought to the cellar, etc.). In an old cellar, where vinification has been made for years, it becomes a quietly but well established inhabitant. On the other hand, it is known that in new  cellars the fermentations are always a little difficult.

What happens during the spontaneous fermentation?

 

Different populations of microorganisms that share the same environment and feed on the same food (in the juice it is the sugar, as well as other essential compounds such as vitamins, nitrogen compounds, etc.) are necessarily in competition themselves. In addition, populations can also act directly against nt the others, for example by releasing toxic substances for competitors into the environment. In all of which, the environmental pressure, due to factors (temperature, acidity, pH, etc.) that can favor or disadvantage one or the other group, also intervenes.

When we crush the grapes, we bring in to the juice all our little travelling guests. But everyone does not like the treatment, many succumb. Only ones suited to survive in these new and difficult conditions remain: high sugar concentration and (almost) no oxygen. The Saccharomyces is poorly represented and for now it is quiet. Fermentation starts with non-saccharomyces which alternate rapidly in the control of the process. It is a sort of race for survival: everyone wants that “damned” sugar (and other compounds) but wins and alternates at the command who prevails, because it starts with an advantage or because it is favored by different chemical-physical conditions which gradually occur (temperature, pH, acidity, increasing ethanol, etc.). Meanwhile, the Saccharomyces is more and more increasingly and, as it is a bit stronger, wins the others on the resistance to alcohol (and to other), becoming more and more the dominant species. It has been found that, where Saccharomyces does not manage to prevail over the final (for several reasons), fermentation proceeds with difficulty and there are unfavorable results on the quality of the wine.

da Bokulich et al., Am J Enol Vitic. June 2012 63: 185-194 Ecco un esempio visivo di come cambiano le popolazioni di lieviti in una vasca nel tempo. è anche evidente la diversa fra annate, l'una rappresentata dalla parte alta (A) e l'altra sotto (B).
Here there a grafic exemple of how yeast populations change in a tank over the time. It it evident the diversity between different vintages (A= a vintage; B= the next one). From Bokulich et al., Am J Enol Vitic. June 2012 63: 185-194

I hope it is clear the large number of variables which come into play. They significantly change the final result (the characteristics of the wine). Oenology is certainly not a simple matter: knowledge is essential for not proceeding too dangerously to the mercy of the fate (not always benign). We are professional-artisans of our work, not amateurs. The health status of the grapes, the availability of nitrogenous nutrients, the cleaning of equipment and the environment, the temperatures, the more or less pushed contact with oxygen, etc., come into play, positively or negatively, as well as (naturally) possible addition of sulfur dioxide and inoculation with Saccharomyces (acts that change the game). All these factors influence selecting the various species and the strains that alternate  to conduct fermentation.

foto di Stefano Lubiana
Photo by  Stefano Lubiana

But we know who is running the show?

No, it is really difficult to follow this alternation in the tank step by step. The wine-producer knows how to manage fermentation carefully with appropriate and calibrated interventions when the process is slow to go on, if he start to hear some unpleasant smell, etc. However, he can’t know for sure who is running the show, which, as already mentioned, can also change every year. It has also been demonstrated (in cellars where only spontaneous fermentations are conducted) that the microorganisms mix involved also changes from the first fermentations to the subsequent ones. In the first fermentations of the vintage the non-saccharomyces start at the first stages, while the S. intervenes later. Going forward with the harvest, however, when it is very strong in the cellar, Saccharomyces can become predominant immediately in the initial stages.

 

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Dry yeast

And the induced fermentation? Is it the pure devil?

For some it is the slogan of the moment: spontaneous fermentation (or not) seems to be able to quickly designate wines as better (or less). However, it is like concentrating only on the tip of an iceberg and not thinking about the enormous mass under water. To make a great artisanal wine of the territory the fermentation is certainly fundamental but it takes a lot before (in the vineyard above all) and much after. For example, if I have an unbalanced grape, because it comes from a bad-managed vineyard, I can also make spontaneous fermentations but I will still get wine that is not very expressive. This is because in the grapes are lacking the building blocks that the yeasts should use to make a great wine, but they don't find them!

Must inoculation can be useful in certain difficult situations, without changing the terroir-expressive characteristics of the wine. Research has shown that the inoculation does not necessarily prevent the initial activity of the non-saccharomyces coming from the vineyard, especially if the addition is (for example) a little delayed.

Surely we know that the diversity of species and strains is much better than uniformity. Certainly we know that to produce local wine it is better to avoid all those selection strains which introduce particular characteristics into the wine, altering the territorial ones. When (and if) we needed, the best choice is to make inoculation with the selected strains from our cellar that, whatever their origin, however they have become integral parts of our "terroir" over the years. Surely we know that every wine, even in the same winery, has its history and its needs, not always uniform, in every sense!

This post is very general and informative. Overall, I want you understand the enormous complexity that comes into play in this process and that makes our work so fascinating and so complicated. You will also understand why, as a rule, the winemaker during the harvest sleeps with difficulty, thinking incessantly about what happens in the tank.

It's a small world but a lot happens!

 

 


About yeasts (a complicated topic !) 1

Today some people speak so much about it, sometimes even inappropriately, neglecting perhaps the other thousand and more basic parameters to produce an excellent wine of the territory. Unfortunately, when a topic becomes marketing arena, it becomes difficult to talk about it with serenity. Unfortunately, the fake news are also not wasted, sometimes so beautiful and poetic that they are fixed in the collective imagination.

Il disegno schematizza il ruolo cruciale del ievito nella fermentazione. Questo processo è il suo modo di nutrirsi e ricavare energia. L'acool è per lui è uno scarto.
Central role of yeast in alcoholic fermentation. This process is its way to nutrition. Ethanol is a waste for it.

 

Yet yeast is not "born yesterday" but has been accompanying mankind for at least 10,000 years in many food transformations, even if the use has been unconscious for millennia. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century Pasteur demonstrated the role of microorganisms in fermentation and also in wine alterations. Since then the path, still underway, to understand this fascinating and complicated transformation has begun.

The very important research works of Louis Pasteur have demonstrated the role of microorganisms in wine-making , until then considered organisms too small to affect our world. From these researches Pasteur had the intuition that they could also be responsible for animal and human diseases, kicking off his precious discoveries on vaccines and the introduction of aseptic techniques in surgery, which have revolutionized the entire  medicine.

 

Saccharomyces cerevisae
Saccharomyces cerevisae

There are still many things to discover and understand. Yet we are no longer at the time when fermentation was a mysterious process around which were born also many legends, superstitious rites and magical interpretations (some hard to die even today).

We know that alcoholic fermentation is mainly carried out by the yeasts of the genus Saccharomyces, such as the famous S. cerevisae or S. bayanus, which in turn can be represented by different strains. They are also the most suitable yeast to withstand the accumulation of ethanol that is created by the transformation of sugars. In fact, they are the only ones who stay alive and lead the process to the end. This fact makes them indispensable.

Candida pulcherrima
Candida pulcherrima

But they are not the only ones: in the juice-wine there is a rich biodiversity of yeasts and bacteria that intervene more or less positively. To name a few, we can remember the Candida pulcherrima (very beautiful!), the genera Pichia, Cryptococcus, Rhodotorula, Kloeckera ... They are generally more sensitive to alcohol, so many can survive only in the early stages. However they are important: it has been shown that these non-saccharomyces greatly influence the aromatic characteristics of the wine, both positively and (sometimes) negatively. If well managed, they give the wine unique notes, contributing significantly to the complexity and personality of the product. If poorly managed, they can lead to smells, excessive volatile acidity, etc. , making wines really unpleasant.

 

 

Where do the yeasts come from?

001

Yeasts, like many useful or harmful microorganisms, are found almost everywhere in nature. There have been several studies to try to understand this point in wine-making. Research over the last 10 years has shown that many microorganisms are present on grapes. Their quantity and diversity depend very much on how the vineyard was managed, on the temperature and on the health status of the fruit. It has also been seen that this mix of microorganisms changes with the vintage, it is characteristic of the micro-territory (the vineyard) and the vine variety. For these reasons it has been included in the so-called viticultural terroir.

It is not easy, however, to establish the quantities and qualities in individual un-scientific evidence. In fact, it has been seen that samplings change a lot, even in the same vineyard, if made in one way or another. Only by comparing a very high number of different studies is it possible to draw more general conclusions. (This is the very research).

On the surface of a perfectly intact berry there are very few nutrients. So there are few microorganisms, those pioneers able to survive in this limiting situation. Many of these are not the microorganisms that carry on the alcoholic fermentation because they depend on oxygen to live. Alcoholic fermentation, on the other hand, is a reaction that occurs in the absence of this gas (in "anaerobiosis" condition).

Most of the microorganisms that affect fermentation are mostly found on damaged berries (for the most diverse reasons). In fact, only by the splits of the peel they can find those nutrients essential for their survival and the environment suitable for them.

But here we need a clarification: to paraphrase the Latins, we must say that "in minima stat virtus". It is true that the most damaged grapes have a greater biodiversity and microbial load, but, attention, this does not mean that it is the best condition for winemaking! In a very healthy grape (the best to be vinified) there is however a small percentage of grapes with micro-cracks to carry a more than sufficient quantity of microorganisms in the cellar. Unhealthy grapes are always negative, both due to their internal non-optimal characteristics and to a strongly negative microbial content.

However, research has shown that this small crowd that we bring into the cellar in the baskets of grapes is mainly composed of the fermentative microorganisms of the early stages. Surprisingly, it is very little represented what will become the almost absolute protagonist when the "game" will be hard: the Saccharomyces!

Where did it come from, then?

(To be continued )


About wines which will not be produced.

mappa vigne Atis

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As we have already anticipated, our most important Red Wines, Atis and Jassarte 2014 will not be in trade. We would have start to sale them in the next few months, with the presentation at Vinitaly.

2014 was a very difficult harvest in our territory. Fortunately it is rare for Bolgheri, but sometimes such vintages can happen.

What is a difficult vintage? It is a year in which the adverse climatic events add up so much that they do not allow the origination of the particular characteristics , to give birth to those Selection Wines where the "Spirit of the Place" manifests itself in all its magnificence. 2014 was one of these.

It was a year without our beautiful summer, replaced by a gray sky of almost continuous humidity, finished with a harvest in the rain. The best of the grapes, which we took care of and selected with meticulous work in the vineyard, has deserved to produce good wines of great finesse, our basic red wines, but not the Selections wines.

For me wine is absolutely terroir-expressive, which means to put yourself at the service of territory, to facilitate a transformation that always surprises you. A great wine of territory is something that you can not fully understand even when it is born, because it does not stop changing and transforming itself in the passing time.

Wine, naturally, is not only born in the vineyard but also in the cellar. The absolute care of our work and the choices made in one and the other area are fundamental. But one thing  is the care that leads to enhance the qualities, one thing is to want to alter them.

Such difficult vintages, for the great selection reds, are not "saved" by intervening in the cellar. You can make them technically perfect with a lot of practices, but you can not bring out that something more and better ("that soul") that simply does not exist in the grapes. It is not a matter of knowing how to do it or not.

In my opinion, having a great technical ability in making wine does not mean intervening at any cost, but rather being able to understand when it is better to stop. I have too much respect for Atis and Jassarte to mistreat them in this way.

Making this choice is never easy for a wine producer. We live from  this work, we feel the responsibility towards our children, our collaborators and their families. In this period of emptiness there are those who will forget our great reds, who will replace them with others. Patience, I am convinced that it will recover.

Waiting for Atis and Jassarte of the great vintage 2015, let's enjoy the latest bottles of the excellent 2013 and the other historical vintages.

Michele Scienza

 

mappa vigne Jassarte


Next appointments on November

Save these dates. Here there are two wine tasting events in Italy. We will be too:

  • 18-19 November 2017, in the port of Livorno, Mare di Vino: wine fair with wineries from the province of Livorno (Denominations: Bolgheri, Val di Cornia, Montescudaio and Terratico di Bibbona). Info on: http://www.maredivino.it/
  • 25-26 November 2017,at the Fair of Piacenza, Mostra Mercato dei Vini dei Vignaioli Indipendenti: wine fair of the vinegrowers from all of Italy, members of FIVI (Federazione Italiana dei Vignaioli Indipendenti), little or medium artisanal wineries. Info on  http://www.mercatodeivini.it/

Taormina Gourmet October 21-22-23 2017

Save the date: we will at the food&wine festival Taormina Gourmet, in Sicily.

Info on:  http://www.taorminagourmet.it/


Criseo: one of the best tuscan white wines

CriseCriseoo, the first aging white wine in Bolgheri Denomination, continues to attract attention. The Italian journalist Daniele Cernilli put him among the best white wines of this summer, describing it as follows:
"Nose of formidable complexity, notes of flint, cedar, fresh almond and exotic fruit hints, full flavor, salty, excellent body, warm but agile and with a very pleasant drinkability. One of the best Tuscan whites this year. Complex".

Thanks very much!


Katrin Pfeifer "Bolgheri: Impressioni dalla Natura" "Impression from Nature"

Ecco alcune immagini della mostra.

Here there are some pictures of the exhibition.

preparazione
preparazione

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Katrin Pfeifer
Katrin Pfeifer

Saturday 8th July: unveiling of the work "August Dance" by Fabrizio Tiribilli"

Saturday 8th July, from 6.00 pm till 8.00 pm, presentation of the work.
We are waiting for you.

 


Tom Hyland: Guado al Melo, expressive wines from Bolgheri

Tom Hyland wrote about Guado al Melo:

Guado al Melo, expressive wines from Bolgheri

Guado al Melo – Expressive Wines from Bolgheri