I’m taking a break from blogging for the next couple of days and so I thought I’d revisit my research on the etymologies of the enonyms Vinsanto (Greek) and Vin Santo (Italian) and their philological relationship (for anyone who missed it the first time around or for anyone who’s only recently started following here).
Happy reading, everyone! I hope you drink something great for the holiday and have a safe and fun Fourth of July!
For our Christmas day meal in Orange, Texas (at sister and brother Misty and Ricky’s house), we opened this bottle of 2006 Barolo Ravera by Cogno (sent to us by winemaker Valter Fissore).
While I’ve tasted a lot of 2006 Barbaresco at this point, this was one of the first expressions of 06 Barolo that I got to spend some time with. The more and more 06 I taste, the more I’m convinced that this is going to be a fantastic vintage for Langa wines, despite the controversy stirred in 2008 when B. Giacosa decided not to bottle his 2006).
06 may not be as great as 01 and 04, but it’s an indisputably balanced, classic vintage, where people who make and made honest wine are going to be rewarded for their faith and integrity.
I was stunned by how good Valter’s 05 Ravera was: beautiful nose, bright acidity, and a great balance of earth and fruit. Chapeau bas, Valter!
The other star of the Christmas day meal was this 2004 Vinsanto by Boutari, also sent to me as a sample (for the Boutari Social Media Project, which continues in 2011). At a youthful 6 years out, this wine showed the depth and complexity that the appellation in known for, with a gorgeous balance of candied white stone fruit and saltiness. The Assyrtiko grape and its unique expressions, whether vinified as a dry or dried-grape wine, continue to fascinate me and the Boutari Vinsanto is one of my favorites (for the record, it’s actually a blend of Assyrtiko and Aidani, which imparts a wonderful aromatic character to this wine). Tracie P and I have been blown away by how well new oak and small cask aging works with Assyrtiko and in this case, the wood gives a nutty counterpart to the fruit and salt (the label reports that the wine was bottled in 2008, leading me to believe that it spent nearly 4 years in wood). I also love how this wine clocks in with a judicious 12% alcohol, remarkable for the dried-grape category but in line with overarching attitudes among Greek winemakers. Great stuff…
Above: I’m borrowing images of grapes recently picked and laid out to dry for Vin Santo from my friends at Il Poggione.
For those of you who have been following my research into the origins of the enonyms Vinsanto (Santorini, Greece) and Vin Santo (Italy), I hope that you will find my most recent discoveries as interesting and exciting as I do.
The first comes from Francesco Scipione Maffei’s history of Verona, Verona Illustrata (parte prima) (Verona, Jacopo Vallarsi e Pierantonio Berno, 1732).
N.B.: for brevity’s sake, I’ve refrained from glossing the historical figures mentioned here. Where possible, I’ve included relevant links. On another occasion, I’ll translate more from Maffei’s wonderful book.
In discussing the historically significant agricultural products of greater Verona, Maffei devotes ample space to the wines, citing mentions in Cassiodorus and in various Roman decrees. Two wines, he writes, were highly coveted by the Romans: one white and one red. He translates (into Italian) Cassidorus’s description of a vinification process for a wine that resembles today’s Recioto di Soave (no surprise here). But a discrepancy in the nomenclature leads him to make the following observation:
Select grapes are stored until December. They are then gently pressed in the great cold [of winter]. The must is stored for a long while without starting fermentation and before laying a hand on it or drinking it.
[Ancient documents] show that this wine, although red and not white, was the very same wine that we praise today by calling it Santo [holy].
It is also produced in greater Brescia, from here to the Chiesi river.
[translation mine]
I believe that this may be the earliest known reference to “Vin Santo” in print (1732). Whether it is or not, it demonstrates that the citizens of the Venetian Republic produced a wine known popularly as “[Vin] Santo.” The fact that it’s mentioned in 1732 reveals that it was popular long before then.
Above: The grapes are laid out to dry on mats called cannicci in Italian.
The second fascinating discovery comes in the form of La teoria e la pratica della Viticultura e della enologia [Theory and Practice of Viticulture and Enology] by Egidio Pollacci (Milano, Fatelli Dumolard, 1883). I’ll let the text speak for itself:
(1) Vin-santo di Caluso, which is famous especially in Piedmont, is prepared using grape varieties known locally as Erbaluce and Bonarda. But in other parts of Piedmont, other grapes are used. …
[translation mine]
In other texts I’ve uncovered, there is clear evidence that the production of Vin Santo was wildly popular in Tuscany by the end of the 19th century. The fact that Pollacci uses Tuscany as an example is indicative of this phenomenon. But what’s important here is the fact that he describes how different grapes are used in different regions, thus revealing that Vin Santo was popular in other parts of Italy as well. The production of Vin Santo in Piedmont was evidently significant enough in the late 19th century that Pollacci (who was from Pistoia) felt compelled to mention it here.
Above: Specially sized oak casks, called caratelli, are used for the long-term aging of Vin Santo.
I wish I had more time to devote to the many interesting texts I’ve “unearthed” recently and Maffei alone would merit his own monographic blog! Alas, it’s time to pay some bills around here… More later… and THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING!
Above: During my graduate years, I spent many hours at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice working on my dissertation on Petrarch and Bembo and early transcriptions of Petrarch Italian poems.
Between the two working legs of my recent trip to Italy, I had just two days free over a weekend, when I could do whatever I wanted to do. What did I do? I went to a library, of course! And not just any library: I spent a truly sinful and decadently fulfilling morning of quiet study in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice (that’s the entrance above), one of my favorite places in the world (where I conducted much of my research for my doctoral thesis back in the day).
In all honesty, I didn’t find what I was looking for that day but I did find a few clues that led me to what I believe is definitive proof that the Greek wine Vinsanto gets its name not from the Vin Santo of Italy but rather from the toponym Santorini, the island where it is made. (Here’s the link to my original post on the origins of the two enonyms.)
Above: My beloved Petrarch (1304-1374, subject of my doctoral thesis) bequeathed his library to the Biblioteca Marciana (named after the patron saint of Venice, St. Mark). A bust of Petrarch surveys the main reading room.
My research that day led me to the discovery of a fascinating 19th-century journal entitled, New Remedies, an illustrated monthly trade journal of Materia Medica, Pharmacy and Therpeutics (New York, William Wood, 1880).
In it (volume 9, page 6), I found the following passage (boldface mine):
Greece, and particularly the islands of the Archipelago, produce a great variety of excellent wines, which have lately attracted the attention of eminent therapeutists in Europe. The most favored island is Santorino, the ancient Thera or Kalliste, being the most southern island of the group of the Cyclades, and belonging to Greece. A variety of wines are produced there, both red and white. The best red wine is called Santorin (or Santo, Vino di Baccho), representing a dry fine-tasting claret, with an approach to port. Another fine (white) wine is called Vino di Notte (night wine). There are two varieties of this, one named Kalliste, being stronger and richer; the other, called Elia, somewhat weaker, but both possessing a fine bouquet and equal to the best French wines, particularly for table use. The “king” of Greek wines, however, is the Vino santo, likewise produced in Santorino, occurring in two varieties: dark-red and amber colored. This wine is sweet, rich, very dry, and has a strong stimulating aroma.
Note how the author (Xaver Landerer, a professor of botany at Athens) refers to a wine called “Santo” and he refers to the island as “Santorino” (and not Santorini). Note also how he calls the sweet wine “Vino Santo” and not Vinsanto or Vin Santo (where the o of vino has been naturally elided by the inherent system of Italian prosody).
Together with the above document, I found numerous others from the same era that refer to a “Vino Santo” or “Santo” from “Santorino,” the common name for Santorini in the late 19th century.
I also discovered the following information, which I have translated from the Italian, from the “Summary of previously unreported statistics from the Island of Santorino, sent to the Royal Academy of Science of Turin by Count Giuseppe de Cigalla,” published in the Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino (proceedings of the Royal Academy of Turin, serie 2, tomo 7, Torino, Stamperia Reale, 1845).
…
[In 1841 Santorini produced] Vino santo 2,350 barrels, 1,922 hectoliters, value 63,168 Italian lire [68]
The only product exported from Santorino worth mention is wine. The quanity exported in 73,120 barrels (59,797 hectoliters) was nearly in 1841 but it generally does not exceed on average 45-50,000 barrels per year (from 36 to 40 thousand hectoliters), correspondent to the amount of consumed in Russia. [70]
Evidently, Vinsanto from Santorini was widely popular in Russia, where it was consumed as a tonic (I found other texts that spoke of the wine’s popularity in Russia).
Above: My good friend and college roommate Steve Muench accompanied me that day and took this photo. A good Texan cowboy hat comes in handy in the Venetian rain!
Why do I do this? And why do I travel to Venice from Padua on a rainy Saturday morning only to spend 3 hours inside a library? As my friend Andy P likes to say, I am a self-proclaimed lover of Italian wine and a moonlighting Italian wine historiographer.
Even better news (for Italian wine geeks out there): I have also discovered what may be the earliest document (early 1700s) to make reference to Italian Vin Santo and the process employed to produce it. Ultimately, I believe that Vin Santo has its origins in the Veneto rather than Tuscany and you’ll see why when I post my findings later this week…
If you made this far into the post, thanks for reading! Stay tuned…
Posting in a hurry today but just had to get this up on the blog. After I posted the other day debunking the myth that Italian Vin Santo and Greek Vinsanto are related in any other way beyond a homonymical coincidence, the chief enologist at Boutari (whose social media project is managed by me), Yannis Voyatzis, express-mailed me a wonderful volume on the wines of Santorini, which (literally) just arrived. In it, I found this wonderful reproduction of a map, printed in 1576 by a Venetian printer. As you can see above and in the detail below, in late 16th-century Venice, the Venetian name of the island Santorini was already well-established.
But more importantly, you can see that the name Santo Erini was still prevalent.
I believe that this supports my theory that the Greek appellation name Vinsanto comes from Vin[o di] Santo[erini].
I’ll have a great deal to say about this in an upcoming post. Early Venetian printing was one of the subjects of my doctoral thesis and I think I’ll have some interesting insights for the philologically inclined among us.
I’m super slammed with work today but just had to share this find asap.
Is this better than the Da Vinci Code OR WHAT???!!!! :-)
Map thanks to the Wiki.
Ok, so since I began working on the Boutari Social Media Project, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about Greek wine and trolling the internets for Greek wine tidbits. In the light of this and the fact that I am a self-proclaimed lover of Italian wine and a moonlighting Italian wine historiographer, I feel compelled today to address the forgivable yet undeniably erroneous assumption that the grand traditions of Vin Santo in Italy and Vinsanto in Santorini (Greece) are related in any other way than the homonymical resemblance of their respective designations.
In other words, I’m here today to tell you that the Italian wine is called Vin Santo and the Greek wine is called Vinsanto but the wines are highly distinct from one another in style and substance and history and their relation is purely linguistic. The names sound similar (and there’s a reason for that) but it has nothing to do with the wines themselves, ok?
Exhibit A is the map above. By 1450 The Most Serene Republic of Venice controlled areas highlighted in bright green in what is now modern-day Greece. (I could go on for hours on the Venetian control of Greece and its cultural implications at the time but that’s besides the point.)
Exhibit B is the name of the island of Santorini. The Venetians gave it this name when they controlled the island and its trade during the Renaissance and beyond. The toponym arises from a corruption of the expression agia eirini, ultimately Santa Irene, and subsequently Santorini in the parlance of the Venetian merchants of that era (up until when the Sultan came knocking again, but that’s another story).
(Nota bene: I could find no philologically credible source that pointed to xantos as the origin of the island’s name [as per the Bessarione myth]. All reliable sources point to a [pseudo] Santa Irene as the origin of the Venetians’s name and the contemporary name [Σαντορίνη in contemporary Greek] for the island.)
Above: In a politically aligned marriage that helped the Republic of Venice to secure trade routes in Greece, Venetian noblewoman Caterina Cornaro reigned as the queen of Cyprus in the late 15th century. Photo via Asolo.it.
The most likely explanation for the confusion is that Venetian merchants and perhaps their customers once called the wines they found on Santorini (as the island of Thera was known then and is known today) Vinsanto, an abbreviation of vin[o] santo[rini] (Italian readers of my blog will immediately recognize the important role that the term santo plays in the Venetians’s weakness for blasphemy and related wordplay [paranomasia]).
I don’t have time to document properly the sources I’ve consulted today and I can only beg your patience to trust that I’ve done the legwork (and I have, btw).
I will close today’s post, written in haste, with a passage from the inimitable Kostantinos Lazarakis’s The Wines of Greece (Mitchell Beazley Classic Wine Library series):
In fact, the Vinsanto of Santorini is made from Assyrtico and Aidani grapes that “are left on the vine to reach high levels of ripeness… After drying, the grapes are crushed and fermented, mostly on their skins.” Vin Santo from Tuscany, the Veneto, and Trentino is made from grapes dried on mats in the attic of a farmhouse. (There are a number of other elements that make Vin Santo different: the Easter week vinficiation tradition — after the wines have dried slowly on the mats over the winter — and the use of a mother yeast culled from previously used aging cask, for example.)
And I’ll also share the following passage, a little nugget I found in my research, translated slavishly (by me), from the Dizionario del dialetto veneto [Dictionary of Venetian Dialect], compiled by Giuseppe Boerio and published by Giuseppe Cecchini in Venice in 1867, p. 527.
Vin santo [is what] we call the wine, which, in certain places of the Ex-Veneto State, is produced during Holy Week with dried grapes. And it is an excellent liquor that is called Vin santo for the very fact that it is made during the days close to Holy Easter.
This is the first credible source I’ve found so far where the name of the Italian wine is attributed to the tradition of vinification during Holy Week.
I’ll provide all the footnotes for wine geeks and the philologically inclined, I promise, soon! One lazy Sunday afternoon when Tracie P is busy in the kitchen. Thanks for reading!
Today, as I watch the events of the Italian wine industry trade fairs unfold from afar, a Facebook friend from Padua, Andrea Fasolo, reminds me of a small miracle that takes place in the Veneto (where the trade fairs take place) and elsewhere in Italy during this time of the year: Vin Santo, via a post by VinoPigro from a few years ago.
It’s natural to think of Vin Santo as quintessentially Tuscan, since Tuscany is the region that continues to produce excellent expressions of Vin Santo with great commercial and qualitative success. But, however small the numbers in terms of volume, Vin Santo continues to be produced in other regions of Italy, notably the Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige.
While most wineries finished vinification long before Christmas of 2009, producers of Vin Santo are only now pressing their dried grapes (like those in the image above, left) for fermentation. One of the possible explanations of the name Vin Santo or Vinsanto, i.e., holy wine, is that fermentation is carried during the period of Easter — springtime, renewal, rebirth — when “Christ rises” again. One of the unique elements of Vin Santo is that fermentation occurs not when temperatures are cooling in fall but when temperatures are beginning to rise in the spring.
But the Easter miracle of Vin Santo doesn’t end here. Once vinification takes place, the wine is transferred to small barrels and laid to rest in the attic of a farm house or barn. There, the wine will remain unmolested for two years and it will undergo at least two more fermentations, “rising again” next spring and the spring thereafter.
The images here — like the one to the right, where the grapes are being removed from the racks where they’ve dried during the winter — come from the Canoso winery in Brognoligo, the “hamlet with the most surface area planted to vine” in the “township with the most surface area planted to vine” in all of Italy, Monteforte d’Alpone, near the town of Soave, in the Veneto, just east of Verona. Canoso is one of the handful of wineries that still makes Vinsanto there.
I was happy to sit the wine fairs out this year since I’ve been on the road so much already in 2010. But I’ve been enjoying the coverage on blogs like Alfonso’s and Ale’s. If I were there, I’d just be complaining about being in my region, the Veneto, and not being able to visit with my many friends in Padua and Belluno. But thanks to Andrea, I can still taste the sweet must (above, not yet filtered nor fined) of the Vinsanto that they’re making now… one of life’s holy, small miracles…
Do Bianchi 
