If we were to even list all the vines that, more or less legitimately, bear the name Malvasia and then try to establish which have reason to retain this name and which do not, we would have to occupy several pages without hoping to succeed in the attempt.
G.Dalmasso – 1950
In Venice, the taverns that sold wine from this island took the name “malvasie” and even today there are numerous “Calli della Malvasia”.
In the Peloponnese there was a Byzantine stronghold located on the rocks of an island called Monemvasia whose name means “place with only one access” (moni emvasis) conquered at the beginning of the fifteenth century by the Republic of Venice.
The Venetians Italianized the name Monemvasia to Malvasia. In Venice, the taverns that sold wine from this island took the name of “malvasie” and even today there are numerous “Calli della Malvasia” where these ancient taverns were once located. Thanks to the work of the Venetians, between 1500 and 1700, “Malvasia” became the most important wine in Europe.
In 1600 the production of Malvasia wines began in various regions of Italy and indications of the areas of origin began to appear. The grapes used are the most diverse. In 1700, the technique of blending grapes of different varieties developed in Europe and some Malvasias were added to wines to give aroma and freshness to table wines. The wine was so successful that it induced the Venetians to promote the cultivation of Malvasia grapes, especially in Crete, an area that was climatically and morphologically suited to this crop.
To this day, there are several aromatic and non-aromatic vines in Greece whose characteristics correspond to those of the Malvasia wines described in the past and, presumably, with each of them, wines called “Malvasia” have been produced and imported from Greece over the centuries. On the other hand, we can also think that following the success of Malvasia wines, several grapes were given this name to facilitate their trade.
This is why today there are several varieties of grapes with the name Malvasia, some with white berries, others with red berries, which have very different organoleptic and morphological characteristics, but it is also true that other Malvasias, although far away in terms of cultivation area, are the same vine, in this case, the Malvasia di Bosa is the same vine as the Malvasias of Lipari, Ischia, Dubrovnik, the Balearic Islands, Sitges, the Canary Islands and the Greco di Gerace, as shown by research carried out by Professors Costacurta and Fregoni.
In the first stage the grape is spherical, golden and with small dark spots that show the beginning of the Botrytis attack.
L’ultimo stadio è l’acino blu, il più ricercato: l’acino raggrinzisce e a volte si presenta poco invitante a causa di un sottile strato di micelio
The spores remain dormant in the soil of the vineyard and on the bark of the vines. Only the humid climate, due to the condensation at night and the heat of the day during the harvest period, favors the drying of the grapes attacked by noble rot even if it does not have a homogeneous development in the bunch, so the grapes present different stages of the evolution of the fungus.
In the first stage the grape is spherical, golden and with small dark spots that show the beginning of the attack of Botrytis, subsequently the grape takes on a dull pink color tending towards purple, maintains the sphericity but the mold has already affected the skin without developing in the pulp. The last stage, the blue grape, is the most sought after: the grape shrivels and sometimes appears unappealing due to a thin layer of mycelium. It is the result of two simultaneous phenomena: the development of the mold in larval form and the simultaneous drying of the grape; the first activates biochemical transformations and the second is responsible for physical-chemical modifications.
Botrytis adheres to the skin, degrading its structure with or without the formation of mold, transforms the organic acids present in the grape and the skin, thinning, allows the acceleration of the drying thanks to a more rapid evaporation of the water contained in the grape itself.
The fungus can devour even five sixths of the acidic substances and a third of the sugar, so that a concentrated juice remains in a sticky and very sweet pulp.
A ripe and healthy grape with a potential alcohol of 14%, is thus transformed into a “raisin grape” with an alcohol potential of between 17 and 23%.
The growth of mold in the vineyard is not a regular event nor predictable; the harvest can last up to seven-eight weeks as several passes are necessary for the harvest, choosing, from time to time, the bunches with more than half of the grapes invaded by mold. The resulting wine has hints of candied citrus, dates, figs and dried apricots, and is very full-bodied thanks to the abundance of glycerol that forms during fermentation.
Sometimes the phenomenon, however expected and sought after, does not occur and the grapes ripen normally and are harvested in just one or two passes in the field, giving a wine that retains the primary aromas due to terpenes, essential oils typical of the variety, which recall peach peel, lemon balm and other aromatic herbs. The natural sweet Malvasia di Bosa Salto di Coloras with the green capsule is produced in years with a warm and dry climate, without Botrytis Cinerea.
Flor yeasts are wine strains of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae family used in wine production and constitute the autochthonous biological capital of each winery, thus acting as an appendix of terroir.
In the first stage the grape is spherical, golden and with small dark spots that show the beginning of the attack of Botrytis
Thanks to a specific gene, active only in flors, they take on the exceptional ability to live two lives. The first is in the usual anaerobic-fermentative activity during which they transform sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. At the end of the process – in which oxygen is not used – all the yeasts normally die due to the alcohol they themselves have produced, falling to the bottom of the container. The “miracle” of the flors consists in a change in metabolism that
reverses the action into an aerobic-oxidative type: a sort of resurrection ensues, with the subsequent ability to use oxygen and feed on the alcohol that should have killed them.
The cell membrane is enriched with fatty acids that lighten its structure, making it hydrophobic, the flors can thus aggregate in chains and rise to the surface to form the veil: an elastic biofilm half a centimeter thick, whitish in color, with a wrinkled consistency and the scent of bread crust. For this to happen, it is necessary to leave the barrels filled to 1/6 of their volume.
Florization, characterized by cellular multiplication by budding, is unpredictable in timing and results: it can activate by December or with the warmth of spring or even never, sometimes showing notable variations from barrel to barrel. By consuming alcohol, the flors oxidize ethanol and produce acetaldehyde, an aromatic precursor that, by binding to other molecules, leads to the classic scents of walnut, saffron, gentian, baked apple and smoked cheese. They even act as biological deacidifiers, so much so that at a certain point they also begin to feed on the acetic acid that can form in the filled barrel. The initial decrease in alcohol (due to its consumption as food) is more than compensated by the simultaneous evaporation of water through the barrels, such as to determine an increase in the alcohol content of up to 1% per year. The crucial point is that in the presence of the veil, oxygen finds a barrier that prevents it from being a direct factor of oxidation, relegating it instead to a precondition for the nutritional-respiratory activity that characterizes the “second life” of the flor.
From the combined action of time and the flor yeasts we produce the Malvasia di Bosa riserva Salto di Coloras with the coppery gold capsule.