(ANSA) - Italy's array of time-honoured vines are being protected and even improved in special vineyards across the country, experts said on Wednesday.
Speaking on the eve of Turin's annual Wine Fair, Milan university wine expert Leonardo Valenti said the primary function of these 'experimental vineyards' was to "preserve Italy's immense wine heritage."
This amounted to a "cultural operation" that "upheld the precious biological value" of Italy's huge variety of vines, Valenti said. The string of test vineyards amounted to what Valenti
called "a vine museum."
The new vineyards have been set up alongside those producing traditional world-beaters like Brunello di Montalcino or the great Piedmont reds, Valenti said. Research had enabled experts to "recover many age-old wine strains" like Sagrantino of Montefalco in Tuscany, enabling it to be used in a number of new and improved wines, he said.
The research vineyards have also boosted the quality of many of Italy's best-known grapes like Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Montepulciano d'Abruzzo and Aglanico.
Their chemical behaviour over time has been compared with international competitors and standards have been raised, producing bigger and firmer bunches, smaller and tastier grapes, and thicker, juicier skins, Valenti said.
Northern and southern Italian stocks have been crossed to create so-called 'super-vines', said the Italian wine expert. The results from the new vineyards will be one of the major talking points at the Turin event, which runs from October 27 to 30.
