Weird Blend Wednesday - Bosco, Vermentino & Albarola, Cinque Terre, Liguria, Italy

Bosco Grapes

A few days ago we took a look at the Albarola grape, which is known as Bianchetta Genovese in the Golfo del Tigullio region of Liguria.  Today I'd like to take a look at another Ligurian wine that has a little Albarola in it, but is blended in such a way that Albarola isn't the star.  This wine is from the Cinque Terre region of Liguria, which is a little south and east from the Golfo del Tigullio, near the Ligurian border with Tuscany, but still right on the Ligurian Sea.  Cinque Terre means "five lands," and is so named for the five villages (Monterosso al Mare, Corniglia, Manarola, Riomaggiore and Vernazza) that compose it.  The villages are built right into the cliffs that overlook the Ligurian Sea and are accessible only via boat, train or on foot.  The entire landscape is steep and hilly and, as you might imagine, viticulture isn't exactly easy.  The locals have carved terraces into the hillsides to support both the buildings and any agricultural pursuits, such as growing vines (though olive trees are cultivated as well).  The hills are so steep that mechanized viticulture is virtually impossible and most vineyards are tended and picked by hand. Production is very small here since there isn't a lot of room for vineyards, and much of what is produced is drunk by tourists, both of which drive the price of the wines up a bit, though the labor-intensive nature of growing grapes here is also a contributing factor to the relatively high prices fetched by the wines.

Wines from the Cinque Terre DOC must be made up of at least 40% Bosco and can contain a maximum of 40% Vermentino and/or Albarola and a maximum of 20% of "other authorized white grapes."  As mentioned above, we just recently took a look at the Albarola grape, and we've taken a few indirect looks at the Vermentino grape (in the context of the Favorita and the Pigato grapes, which are genetically identical to Vermentino), which just leaves us the Bosco grape, about which there is apparently very little to say.  The Oxford Companion to Wine's entry reads in full: "ordinary white grape of Liguria."  Jancis Robinson's Guide to Wine Grapes adds little more, as that entry reads "very ordinary Ligurian that forms the basis of Cinqueterre and oxidizes easily."  Nicolas Belfrage, in his Barolo to Valpolicella calls the grape "strange, but not so wonderful."  Besides Cinque Terre, Bosco is permitted in only one other DOC region, the Val Polcevara just west of Genoa in central Liguria, where it is allowed to make up no more than 40% of the blend.

I was able to try the 2009 Bisson "Marea," which is 60% Bosco and 40% Vermentina/Albarola (the winery doesn't give a more precise breakdown).  I picked this bottle up for about $29 locally.  In the glass the wine was a fairly deep lemon gold color.  The nose was moderately intense with aromas of golden apples, fresh pears, honeysuckle flower, pineapple and lemon.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of ripe red apples, lemon, almonds and pecan.  It was bitter and kind of metallic tasting as well.  I noted above that Bosco oxidizes pretty easily, and it's possible that this wine was starting to go through that process.  This bottle is only about three years old and I wouldn't expect it to be shot this soon, especially at this price point, but it's hard to say whether I just got a bad bottle or whether this is a wine meant to be drunk as early as possible.  I don't exactly relish the idea of dropping another $30 to try to find out, so please leave a comment below if you've had some experience with this wine and want to share it.

Bianchetta Genovese (Albarola) - Golfo del Tigullio, Liguria, Italy

I'm somewhat shocked to discover that today marks only the third time that I've written about a wine from Liguria.  We first visited this tiny region of northwestern Italy back in January when we took a look at the Pigato grape, which it turns out is genetically identical to Vermentino and Favorita.  We stopped by again back in April to take a look at an interesting little rosato made from the Ciliegiolo grape, which it turns out is an offspring of Sangiovese and a little known grape called Muscat Rouge de Madere.  Both of those posts dealt with some really interesting scientific questions and controversies, and today's grape looks to follow that trend, so join me in taking a look at the Bianchetta Genovese grape, more commonly known as Albarola.

For the most part, when you're talking about the Albarola grape, you're talking about the Cinque Terre region of Liguria.  Most wine drinkers who have had a white wine from Liguria have probably had one from Cinque Terre.  It's an interesting region that makes some really nice wines, and we'll take a closer look at it later this week, but we're not really interested in that region today because while Albarola is allowed in the wines of Cinque Terre, it cannot make up more than 40% of the blend there.  No, today we're interested in the Golfo del Tigullio region, which is a little farther north and west along the bend of the Ligurian coastline.  The growing area is based around the Gulf of Tigullio, particularly around the towns of Portofino, Santa Margherita and Rapallo.  Here, Albarola is known as Bianchetta Genovese, and DOC wines which indicate Bianchetta Genovese on the label must be made up of at least 85% Bianchetta.

But let's stop for a moment and ask whether Albarola and Bianchetta Genovese are really the same grape.  When you search for Bianchetta Genovese on Wikipedia, you are automatically redirected to the page for Albarola where you are told that one of the accepted synonyms for Albarola is Bianchetta Genovese.  This is true, but it's not the whole truth.  Bianchetta Genovese is also an accepted synonym for a grape called simply "Genovese," according to the VIVC.  Further, Nicolas Belfrage, in his Barolo to Valpolicella, distinguishes between Albarola and Bianchetta Genovese and writes about them as if they're two separate grapes. This source, seems to suggest that the grape can be found as a blending component in the wines of Cinque Terre, which would support the argument that it is in fact the same as Albarola.  This source, however, seems to indicate that Bianchetta Genovese is a rare grape rescued from extinction by Pierluigi Lugano, the founder of Enoteca Bisson, who made the wine we'll be looking at below.  This story matches the one told on the Bisson website, which says that Lugano was "led to 'revive' native Ligurian wines that were practically disappeared, such as the 'Bianchetta Genovese.'"  None of the literature on Albarola mentions any kind of revival or rescue from extinction, so either Bianchetta Genovese is separate from Albarola and Lugano saved it for the world, or it's really the same grape and all this talk of rescue is based on a mistake.

Which is true?  Once again, DNA research comes to the rescue.  A study done in 2009 (paper can be found here) analyzed several different grapes from Liguria as well as grapes from nearby regions of Italy.  The research team found that Albarola and Bianchetta Genovese were genetically identical, meaning that they are one and the same grape.  There was another vine called Albarola which didn't match the other samples in the study, but this was found to be an obscure local curiosity from Lavagna that isn't used for commercial wine production.  Interestingly, this study also found that the Tibouren grape grown in Provence, France, is the same as the Rossese grape grown around Dolceacqua in Liguria.

The wine I was able to try was the 2009 Bisson "u Pastine," which means something like "very special gift" in the local Ligurian dialect.  I picked this bottle up for about $25 locally.  In the glass this wine was a fairly deep lemon gold color.  The nose was moderately intense with subtle white pear, lemon, citrus peel and white flower aromas.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of pear and lemon fruit along with some bitter lemon peel.  The wine had a strong chalky minerality to it, which is something I'm never a particularly big fan of.  This grape is mostly found in blends and is rarely bottled on its own, and this wine is a compelling piece of evidence for why that might be the case.  Bisson usually makes very good and interesting wines, but this particular bottle just didn't have enough character to keep me engaged.  It could have been a little over the hill, and I'd be interested in trying a younger bottle if I happen to run across one on sale, but this is a difficult wine to recommend given my experience with this particular bottle.