Ep. 253 Serena Imazio (Book Author & Researcher) on the lineage & genetics of vines and wine history

Italian wine podcast. Chinching with Italian wine people. This podcast is brought to you by Native Grape Odyssey. Native Grape Odyssey is an educational project financed by the European Union to promote European wine in Canada, Japan, and Russia. Enjoy. It's from Europe. Hello. This is the Italian wine podcast. My name is Montewood, and my guest today is Sirena E Matcio. Sirena is, that's right. You're Italian? Yeah. You speak perfect English, and you work with, professor Atilio Shenza. With this book in front of me, Lasterpe Delvino, what does that mean? Lasterpe Delvino means, the families of wine. So we are trying to describe, which is the history behind the great families, the Pinot family, the chardonnay, and who are the ancestors, who are the broad the sisters, mothers and fathers, trying to understand how these grapevines went through in the European contest. Okay. So in turn, and what what were the sort of key points in terms of, say, if we go back to the middle age and cold weather. Yes. What happened then? Why was that important? There was a cold period. Wasn't there? What happened? Yes. We had, at the beginning of the middle age, we had a hot period, and that was a sort of optimum for one growing and, of course, for wine production. After that, we had a cold period, which we call the little glassation, the What happened? It happened that wine was not abandoned. The wine production was, still one of the main interests of human beings, and, the, this, the, the, the thing that, changed, where the varieties, and we had the first selection of which varieties were the best and mostly adapted to that weather. So this was the period where Chardonnay had his, opportunity to come out as a great vine and one variety because, Chardonnay is an early variety. So we have, we have it at maturation. The berries are mature in a very early period, and, not in the, at the beginning of autumn, so, in the in the period, you can understand that in a period where you have, cold weather, autumn is a risky moment for plant maturation and for fruit maturation. So this was the first step of selection. Of these varieties, but we can talk about, lots of other situation and cases. Such it. What about a period when say the the weather was a little bit warmer or trends, maybe with, say, the sweeter wines in the Mediterranean the Malvasiras, why why did they suddenly become famous or popular? They become famous or popular because they had to have, Malvasir become famous during, the evonation period because, we call them, in Italy, we call them the Vini Naviga that means that we are wines that were both and made in the Mediterranean islands, and then, spread to all the Mediterranean by, divination Republic. By boat. Yeah. By boat. Yes. Of course. By both. And, this is why we call them that it's sealed wines. And, so sweet because they had to, go through a long period, in, in boats. So they needed to be conserved and to arrive at destination, still as a good product for the consumers. And they is the reason why, they were so sweet. And, these wines, started to educate the taste of, the most important, people in all the the The the noble families. The noble families. They were quite it weren't they? Some of those clients? Of course, they were expensive, and, these made them particularly for for a very, high level of, of people, the the richest people. But in those period, we still have a new especially in the the most important towns in Italy as Milano. We still have, vines that are that are cultivated and wines that are produced for common people for the poorest part of the of the society. And especially in Milano, we know that there were lots and lots of viners in in Milan. Really? In Milan. Really? Yes. And we also have a very important, Vineyard, which was, cultivated from Leonardo Delinci. Leonardo Delinci. Was one of the owner of the most important vineyards in in, in Milano, and he talks about that vineyard, and it was Malazia vineyard. We know now that, it was Malazia vineyard, and, we did this work with Atilio Shenza, an analyzing DNA of, some little pieces found in the this beautiful garden a few years ago, and we were able to understand which was the exact exact variety cultivated by Leonardo Davic. Because he had his own farm in in near Florence, and Tuscany, didn't he? He was in, in Tuscan, and he has, of course, Tuscan origins. The only vineyard he talks about, is the one in Milano, and he lives it also as in in a part of his inheritance to his most, to a friend. So it's this is one of the the history that we, talk about in the in the books. Tell me about the vine story of Sanjay, and then the Lambrusco, the Lambrusco is a family of vines, isn't it? Lambrusco is a family of vines, not all the Lambrusco vines are genetically linked to one to the other, but Lambrusco is what is a word used by the Romans to identify vines that came from the bush from it. So there are wild varieties, the ancestors of the cultivated varieties we we have. Lambrusco, so we we always thought that Lambrusco varieties were a sort of link from cultivated to wild grave vines, but we didn't have, a real demonstration about this. And we had it when analyzing the DNA of some Lambrusco varieties, we found that these varieties are mostly linked and close to the wild compartment of grape vines than to the cultivated compartment So they are in the the facts, they are cultivate, they are cultivated varieties, Lambusco Disorvara, which is one of the most important varieties cultivated in Emilia Romania, is, of course, equitivated varieties. We have lots of bottles made by Lambrozco di Sabara, but, it's one of the the the Lambrzco varieties that we found, are closer to the wall compartment. So it it's a sort of, match, linking the two the two great compartment, and since we had this demonstration, we didn't, have the proof that wild vines and cultivated vines were linked together. That gave us this, opportunity to understand that, that we had this kind of, connection between the two compartments. I mean, it's interesting that Lambrisco often is, not sure on every market, but certainly in the UK market. It was it's been damned as a as a terrible wine. Yes. That is not true. Cheers. For, and it it actually, it is kind of as we've just been there. It's the family of the Lambrisco wines, or at least, sorbada, at least, is is a key sort of link it seems between as we're hearing from the wild wild vines that generally make wine that we don't find palatable with the Vineifer of wines, whose wines, we do find palatable. So it's a great thumbs up, I think, for for poor old Lambrisco. People people are mine. I did a podcast recently. My my son interviewed me. How's, you know, he's eleven at the time. I asked dad what's your favorite wine, and Italian wines have, Lambrisco is one of my favorite Italian wines. And, you know, he doesn't know what Lambriscoe is, and he was like, okay. And he asked me the next question, but my friends, do you want to use serious or why why don't we? Why didn't you say things like Chatele of feet or whatever? And, I love it because it's, it's, a wine that you can drink every day. It's joyful. Yes. You don't have to think too much about it. You can relax. It's first style with food, etcetera. It's not too fizzy. And, I think that you also have to consider that, wine types evolve with the the cook with the With the food. With the food of the country of the region. And if you taste the Lambrusco with the Noco Frito and with all the sausages that, Emilia Romagna is, to drink Lambrozco to have your mouth, in a proper set. So for that kind of. So for this book, the Sanjay Lambrozka, what do what do we learn about SanjayVese in the in the book? San Juvezo, we we know almost everything about San Giovanni is a great variety, the basis of the most important, Italian wines, and And, what we learned, analyzing San Jose DNA is the team. We fought, San Jose. The the question was, is San Jose born in Tuscany or in Emidia, Romagna? Because both the region have lots of Sanjobeza. And, what we learned from DNA is, that Sangevese is not born in Tuscany, and Sangevese is not born in Emina, Romgevese comes from the south of Italy. And From whereabouts, exactly? We we think that, he has ancestors from Calabria, or Sicily. So it's, completely alpha of the of the idea that we have about this, great grapevine. And so another thing we learned about sangiovese is that sangiovese as Garganaga, Garganaga for the white wines and sangiovese from the black wines, two key varieties in the Italian germ plasma platform, because they are ancestors in different ways of, lots of lots of Italian varieties. So in in Garganiga's case, what what is linked to. Garganaga is linked to lots of, to Greranico, as an example, and two other, white varieties that we cultivated in the south of Italy. And, it's difficult to say because because we we, because we have new findings every every year about, really? Yes. It's ongoing. It's not like we know all the answers. No. We don't know all the answers. We we can't know all the answers. And we just need to analyze lots and lots of genetic traits to understand, if the link is really, correct or not. And, So when these analyses are taking, I mean, how long does it take if I come up to your office with a grapevine cutting, and I think, well, I think this it nowadays, it's, quite easy because, you have to analyze, at least fifty, different Lusai in the DNA in different spots of the DNA, and compare them to, I I guess, if you don't have no idea about the, the wood you have in your hands, all the varieties that you that you know and that you have. It was very difficult, ten, twenty years ago. Now it's easier because we have lots of database. All the the data that we collect around the world, in all the labs working on grapevine genetics are stored in databases, and the the access to these databases is public, so you can have these informations, and you can compare your profile, your DNA profile with all the ones that are worldwide collected and stored in the in the databases. And this made the work very, very easy. But you you don't know. I mean, if, the variety has ancestors that are extinct and, you know, in in your of, Filoxera, erased lots of the genetic platform that we cultivated. You are not able to find, parents or ancestors. And this is, makes this work very difficult because you you may not find that You may never find out. Yeah. Of course. Okay. I just wanted to say thanks to my guest today. Thank you. Yes. It's okay. For enlightening us a little bit about, vine genetics. It's not often we broach that subject on the Italian wine podcast, but it's very important, especially when it as regards Italian wine as we we don't have all the answers, but but gradually seems getting some of the answers to those genetic questions and origins of those great varieties whose origins are unclear. Thank you very much. Thank you Hello. Thanks for tuning into the Italian wine podcast. Our channels are SoundCloud. 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