An Ancient Wine lives on

By Kathleen Willcox

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch from Pexels.

The culture surrounding the consumption of wine has been transformed over millennia, but the product? It hasn’t changed as much as one might think. Since humans began domesticating and cultivating Vitis vinifera more than 6,000 years ago in Southwestern Asia, wine grapes have been one of the world’s most valuable and consistent crops.

 And despite the unflagging marketing campaigns designed to make wine appear to be a dynamic and evolving product—the rise of rosé, natural wine, orange wine, “clean” wine—consulting the genetic evidence tells us that we drink pretty much the same wines that the ancient Romans drank. According to a study in Nature Plants, the 28 grape seeds gathered from nine archeological sites in France dating back 2,500 years are remarkably similar to the grape seeds being planted across the world today. Researchers reason that the congruence extends back further, but they don’t have scientific proof.

 But one of the most historically significant styles of wine in the world appears to be threatened by a culture of consumption that has not evolved to welcome it. Wine made with grapes that are partially dried to concentrate their flavor and sugar is  extraordinarily time-consuming to produce, and as with many other products in the food and wine industry, when short-cuts are applied to save money and time, the product is subpar. Dried grape wine produced on an industrial and fast-forwarded time frame is to classic Amarone what Cheez Whiz is to aged cheddar.

 “Unfortunately, the process of making wine from dried grapes is long and very expensive, and some producers have tried to cut corners and industrialize the process,” says Katarina Andersson, a sommelier with a specialty in Italian wine, and host of Grapevine Adventures. “The most widely available wines, inexpensive ones that people who have never had the real thing are most likely to try by the glass in trattorias in Italy, are overly sweet and far less complex than the real thing.”

Dried-grape wines come in many forms, but all are generally made from partially raisined grapes that are either allowed to shrivel on the vine, or are dried by various methods in the production facility. Like many other ancient gastronomic techniques involving the drying and concentration of flavors (i.e. cheese and salumi), it likely emerged as a method of preservation. These wines are inherently more naturally stable than typical table wines wine and, thousands of years ago, could be shipped long distances and stored for long periods without an impact on their flavor. 

 The technique of producing dried-grape wines was perfected in Ancient Greece, and the wine itself was praised by Homer, Horace, Virgil and Pliny. The Roman Empire spread the technique, along with the culture of wine, when on break between all of the conquering and plundering. Wine made from preserved grapes has been present at some of the most important moments in Judeo-Christian history; it was, historians believe, what Jesus Christ drank at his last supper, which is believed to have occurred on the last Thursday of Passover in or around AD 30. Near Jerusalem, where the Last Supper was said to have taken place, archaeologists have found jars from around that time inscribed with the phrase, “wine made from black raisins.” Researchers also believe that producers added tree resins like myrrh, pomegranates, mandrakes, saffron and cinnamon to these wine-cocktails.

 Over the centuries and over to the northwest in Italy, wine made from dried grapes became central to the culture, a part of civic and religious celebration. The process evolved over centuries, and today, appassimento—which entails essentially drying grapes in ventilated drying rooms during the cool months after harvest—is central to the process for most producers. But others choose to allow their grapes to dry on the vine, welcoming Botrytis cinerea, or noble rot.

 Modern Italian versions of dried grape wine can be either sweet or dry and have regional quirks and variations: Amarone, Picolit, Vin Santo, Recieto. The sweet iterations are complex, with notes of dark plum pudding, coffee, caramel, and are often paired in Italy with tangy dried Italian cheeses. The dry versions are forceful, cherry-sour, bitter, dark chocolate, with textures of velvet; lovely with a meaty ragu, or rare steak. They require contemplation and thought.

 But these wines are not without their complications. Producers tell us about the challenges they—and the public—are facing.

OVER THE HILL, THROUGH THE WOODS

The flavor of wine that is made from dried grapes is concentrated, so every choice the grower and producer makes in the vineyard and field is magnified in the bottle. Grapes grown on hillsides cost more to farm and pick, but they’re infinitely tastier. Also, mechanized picking on hillsides is challenging, which means harvesting has to happen by hand, adding another layer of time and cost.

 In Valpolicella, where Amarone and Recioto have been made for centuries, Maria Sabrina Tedeschi, a driving force at her family’s four-century old Tedeschi Wines, says that not only are hillsides important, but grape yields must be held down to ensure quality.

 “Stricter production specifications have been introduced in the last 10 years, with selection limits lowered to 40-50 percent and even 35 percent in some cases,” Tedeschi says. “From there, the drying of the grapes causes a 40 percent loss in moisture, so the grape to wine yield is reduced,” making the process even more costly. But she hopes that the Consorzio Tutela Vini Valpolicella, the regional wine board that institutes quality control demands even more, not less from producers, in a bid to continue to raise the bar.

 “It would be useful to limit grape selection to just hillside grapes for better quality,” she says. Grapes grown “in soils on hillsides have more homogenous skins and increase the aromas and flavors.”

 The founder of Veneto’s Monte Zovo Winery, Diego Cottini, agrees that  wine made from hilly vineyards, while more expensive, is infinitely better than valley wine.

 “Our estate in Tregnano, in the northeast of Verona, lays on top of a mountain dividing the Valley of Mezzane and Illasi,” Cottini says. “It is uncontaminated and wild, and the Amarone we can make from the grapes grown here—Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella—are rich, complex and authentic.”

Photo by Tim Mossholder from Pexels.

THE WAITING GAME

In Italy, every town, and every grandmother in that town, makes Sunday sauce a little differently. Same goes for grape-growing and winemaking.

 In Trentino, between the northern part of Lake Garda and a subrange of the Alps called the Brenta Dolomites in Italy’s far north, Cantina Toblino cultivates a network of small vineyards, many of which contain Nosiolo, the only native white grape of the region.

 Toblino grows and vinifies about half of the Nosiolo growing on the planet.

 “We have the honor and the burden of protecting the heritage of the grape and Oro di Toblino in Vino Santo Trentino DOC,” says Carlo De Biasi, CEO of the certified-organic winery. “The grapes are harvested in October, placed on racks in a cellar where keeping the windows open every day, the wind that rises from the lake helps dry the Nosiola. The process lasts until the Holy Week of Easter, where they’re pressed.”

 After the drying and pressing of the grapes, the wine is far from the finish line. Themust ferments spontaneously, rests for 12 to 14 years, and is placed on the market 15 years after the harvest. For every 220 pounds of fresh grapes harvested, 20 liters of wine are obtained. (A traditional wine bottle size is 0.75 liters.)

 It’s clearly not about the money for De Biasi. “If we looked at the cost of production, we would probably no longer produce it, but this wine represents the history and culture of the Valle dei Laghi and specifically of Toblino. It embodies the charm of patience, respect for the times of nature, concepts that are perhaps lost today. This wine is a rare pearl, that brings us back to a forgotten dimension, and rejects the splendor of fast, of everything immediately.”

CULTURE

 Like De Biasi, Annalisa Zorzettig, owner of the Zorzettig Vini, which produces Picolit in Fruili, in Northeastern Italy, the wine represents their dedication to the region literally, but also to the paradigm it represents to them.

 “Picolit is the last variety to be picked, and we have always made it in the last small barrel on the bottom left side of the cellar as a reminder that this inheritance has a fixed place in our production, and that it represents the enthusiasm and expectation of each vintage,” Zorzettig explains. “Production is small, made from 1 hectare [2.47 acres]. The grapes are dried on the vine and this delicate situation means it is not made every year, resulting in a wine producing few vintages, and an identity halfway between myth and legend. It is to us, a symbol of the soul and the courage of the local people, who never retreat when faced by odds.”

 For other producers, like Lorenzo Sieni of Montefioralle in Chianti, the wine is embedded in not just their daily life and notions of the country’s courage, pride, beauty and strength, but also its faith. Vin Santo literally means Holy Wine, and was used to celebrate mass by monks, who began managing vines and producing wines in the region centuries ago. That may be the reason for the name, but legends of the wine curing the plague may have contributed to it as well.

 From more than two tons of fresh grapes, just 800 bottles are produced by Montefioralle, a concentrated haul to be sure.

 Since the pandemic transformed the way many of us live, there’s an almost palpable quest for personal connection, and a pivot away from the short-term satisfaction so many of us clamored for in recent years to longer-term fulfillment in work and play.

 If there was ever a time for a wine with roots in antiquity, which takes more than a decade to produce, and is made from shriveled grapes, to experience a resurgence, it was 2020.