FEUDI DI SAN GREGORIO, A SYMBOL OF VITICULTURE IN IRPINIA, IS FINANCING THE UNIVERSITIES OF MILAN AND NAPLES FOR STUDIES ON THE AGLIANICO VARIETAL.

A wine producer who funds enological studies at two universities whose results will be used to benefit an entire territory: this is the case of Feudi di San Gregorio, the symbol of winemaking in Irpinia, which has begun a collaboration with the universities of Milan and Naples.

The subject of the study will be the Aglianico grape varietal, in an attempt to understand all of its facets and potentials and to track its origins.

“The rapport between the university and the company is fundamental” – explained Marco Gallone, the managing director of Feudi di San Gregorio in an interview with WineNews – “if one wants to do an in-depth study of a subject, in our case the origin of a varietal, in a scientific manner. And this can only be done with authoritative researchers like those chosen at the two universities, Milan and Professor Scienza for the agronomic aspects, and Naples with Professor Moio for the enological aspects”.
The group headed by Professor Attilio Scienza (an international authority on viticultural research) in Milan will be studying the agronomic aspects that vary from the wine zones in the areas not only of Aglianico but also Fiano, Greco and Falaghina in order to better understand what the best interaction is between varietal and environment through the techniques of varietal enology, as well as the genetic improvement of the region’s varietals with the selection of clones and their healthy adaptation to the territory also through DNA mapping in order to single out the genetic sources of good characteristics to improve and enrich the aromatic complexities of the varietals. The important task of recuperating and preserving minor varietals that risk extinction in order to protect and valorize the viticultural biodiversity in Campania and southern Italy is also a goal of this research group.
Instead, at the University of Naples, Professor Moio (the first person to write a treatise on the Aglianico varietal and head of studies dedicated to the vineyard) and his staff will be studying the aspects most closely related to winemaking. The goal is that of clarifying and understanding the origins of the sensory peculiarities of Aglianico wine produced within the three typical areas: Taurasi, Taburno and Vulture.
Researchers, in vineyards made available by Feudi di San Gregorio, will study the influences of different soil compositions and the different microclimatic conditions on the production of those molecules that are directly or indirectly responsible for the color, the flavor and the aromas of Aglianico wines produced by grapes from the above-mentioned three geographic regions. The micro-winemaking that will be conducted between 2008 and 2010 will permit polyphenol and aromatic characterization as a definition of their sensory profile. This study will also single out sites within the vineyards that correspond to parcels capable of supplying grapes from which wines that are tightly linked to the territory can be obtained, as already occurs in France.



A summary of the guidelines of the projects:

Aglianico Project - exploration and valorization of intervarietal variabilities. Aglianico is a varietal of ancient cultivation in the Campano-Lucana areas that, over the centuries, has created wide internal variability, only partially referable to the three typologies that are already known: Taburno, Taurasi, and Vulture.
The project intends to:
- recuperate and give value to the biotypes that are not already characterized, through the exploration of centuries-old vineyards in areas of ancient cultivation;
- characterize, through the tools of molecular biology, the differences in the potential for qualitative expression of the Taburno, Taurasi and Vulture biotypes;
- characterize the differences caused by the conditions of the terrain and the climate, in the main producing areas of Aglianico, the expression of the qualitative potential of the grape, and, in particular, on the polyphenol (coloring material and tannins) and aroma components.

The Curiosity – Poet Orazio, the bard of Lucano wine.
Feudi di San Gregorio presents the book “Ditirambo Lucano” by Professor Francesco Sisinni, director of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage for over twenty years
The territories of wine, the beneficial effects of the nectar of the gods, and moderation in drinking it: these are the themes around which wine communications revolve these days. But there were those who had already anticipated them over 2,000 years ago. The poet Orazio, in Rome during the first century before Christ, was celebrating his dithyrhamb, the original verses from ancient Greece that celebrated Dionysus, the virtues of the wines from his lands, Lucania, but also the way of drinking, without any hurry and without exagerating. And these are the verses that inspired “Ditirambo Lucano” (Lucano Dithyrhamb), the work of Professor Francesco Sisinni, philosophy professor at the historic Università degli Studi Lumsa in Rome, and director of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage for over twenty years.

In “Ditirambo Lucano”, published by De Luca Art Publshers and presented recently in Rome by the Feudi di San Gregorio winery, the verses of Orazio are revisited. The ex-member of parliament, Gerardo Bianco, explained: “it sings the culture of wine, like the greatest poet of the work of the vineyard and agriculture… Orazio was searching to re-propose the Italian wines of a specific area, the area they came from and not their varietals”.