Red juice vinifera varieties

"Leo Bueno" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

There aRe a few varieties with colored juice - they are sometimes called teinturier in French (which could be translated as colorers, or, perhaps closer, dyers). One variety IS Teinturier. ALicante Bouschet and Gamay Teintuirer (not the same as the Gamay of Beaujolais which is sometimes referred to as Gamay a jus blanc) are others. These are used as colorants - to add more color to pale varieties. I know of no teinturier that in itself makes firts class wines.

HTH

Cheers

Nils Gustaf

I would like to add a small comment:

In 1824, Louis Bouschet crossed the then widely planted french grape Aramon with an ancient red-juiced vinifera variety, Teinturier du Cher, and the result was called Petit Bouschet. In 1865, this man's son Henri continued this path, crossing Petit Bouschet with Grenache to create Alicante Bouschet. In our time it has reached quite good results in Portugal and South Africa, even when it is made as 100% Alicante Bouschet.

Helge

Same goes for labrusca varieties, it seems: Ancellotta is a tintoria too, and is one of the traditionale Lambrusco grapes. "Vitis labrusca" is not "lambrusco" but the opposite is true, baing Lambrusco grapes from that family, so Ancellotta should be from the "vitis labrusca" family, too.

BTW - Vitis Labrusca varieties should be the only italian autoctonous grapes, is it true?

Yes, various v. labrusca such as the Concord grape have dark juice.

V. labrusca is native to the Eastern US, so I don't see how it could be autochthonous to Italy. Am I missing something? I thought that all European grapes were v. vinifera until the discovery of the Americas.

Mark Lipton

Vilco loves lambrusco, uses it as water.

Yes he meant Lambrusco is based on vinifera grapes, not labrusca.

Vilco, where does the name Lambrusco come from, from Lambro?

I heard that, too, but I also know that the "vitis labrusca" originated also here. This is very interesting: "Ed è una scoperta dovuta al rinvenimento di semi di vite silvestre proprio nelle zone di produzione attuale del Lambrusco, trovati in località archeologiche poste presso le "terremare", isole emergenti sugli acquitrini conseguenti allo scorrere del fiume Po e sulle prime propaggini appenniniche."

- Translated: "And this discovery is due to the finding of "silvestre" grape seeds just in the current Lambrusco production zone, found in archaeological sites near the 'terramare', (literally: earth-sea) isles emerging over the marshes due to the flow of the river Po, and on the first hills of the Apennines".

From the same page: "Successivi rinvenimenti di altri semi, ci fanno ritenere senz'altro note queste uve selvatiche oltre che ai Latini anche agli Etruschi e ai Galli ligures."

- Translated: "Subsequent findings of other seeds, make us deduct that these wild grapes were known to, besides Latins, also to Etruschi and ligurian Gallic people"

Also the famous Virgilio, born in Mantova (Mantua) some 50 km from here, wrote of the vitis labrusca 2 thousand years ago, and the same did Plinio in his "Naturalis Historia" where he describes 2 main varieties: the vinifera and the labrusca, the latter one growing in the wild.

There's much confusion about the origins of this plant, many sources cite it as an american grape (and immune to phillossera), but the more I read and the more sources I find who speak of lambrusco as coming from Vitis Labrusca. It's not difficult to find people making confusion between american fox-grape and vitis labrusca... Only one sure thing: I gotta investigate more.

Obviously ;)

Check the link I posted in my reply to Mark. Now I'm "dazed and confused" about it.

From "labrum" (latin for border, margin) and "ruscum" (spontaneously growing plant): "spontaneous plant growing along the margins (of fields and crops)". This not only gives an origin to the name, but also clearly indicates the wild origins of that grape: while the vinifera was cultivated, the labrusca wasn't.

Another source translates "ruscum" as "cultivated fields", thus changing the interpretation of the name Lambrusco into this: "along the margins of the fields". Anyway it is, it's obvious that this grape has been arounf for a long time in central - northern Italy. Now I'm guessing: could it be that the name "vitis labrusca" has been used in the past for this wild italian grape and now it is used to indicate the american-native grape?