| Local
Wines
Sardinia began making wine perhaps a little bit later than other
regions of Italy, but it immediately demonstrated a special calling
for the production of, high quality, controlled denomination of
origin wines. It is not by chance that the island, since the 1500s,
has been nicknamed “Insula vini”.
Some discoveries and historical testimonies attest the presence
of vines and the production in wine in Sardinia from the Nuragic
Age. The following centuries see the Carthagians first and the
Romans later exercise control over the cultivation and export
of wine products, culminating, in the medieval period, in the
birth of specific laws to regulate the care of and trade in wines.
In the second half of the 1800s, an infestation of parasites destroyed
almost all the Sardinian vineyards, only coming back to life again
at the beginning of the 1900s, thanks to the action of a group
of agricultural experts and the Anti-Phylloxera Consortium which
spread the technique of grafting American vines onto the stocks
(vitis vinifera).
After many centuries of domination by an assortment of peoples
with distinctive cultures, Sardinia has succeeded in persuading
itself back onto the Italian and foriegn markets with high-quality
wines, maintaining especially high standards in the quality and
tending of its varieties.
Among the most ancient grape types we remember the “Nuraghus”
and the “Vernaccia”, almost certainly arriving in
Sardinia through visitors from Greece, North Africa and Phoenicia,
a historic civilisation which travelled around carrying seeds
and plants, thereby spreading the quality and methods of cultivation.
Every grape variety had a different origin, the Nasco and Moscato
from Rome, the Monica and Malvasia from Byzantium, while Spanish
varieties such as Torbato, Cannonau and Giro are owed to the Catalans
and Aragonese.
The famous Vermentino, on the other hand, is thought to have landed
on the island from nearby Corsica in the 18th century, while more
recent varieties, such as Sangiovese, Cabernet and Chardonnay,
arrived in 1900.
Today Sardinian wines are renowned throughout the world, perhaps
because within small cooperatives, local consortiums and private
companies a single objective has been imposed – the quality
of the product - therefore, the aim of all local growers has wisely
been to produce with the best known wines, rather than be tempted
by curiosity for unknown qualities and quantities.
Whoever studies the wine-making process in Sardinia should be
aware that here many varieties of wine are produced. This is because
in Sardinia wine, like the rest of the environment, the people
and animals, represents its own, unique world. It is not by chance,
therefore, that when the grape varieties were imported, the island
immediately moulded them to its liking, the wind, sun and sea
making them unambiguously Sardinian.
An old saying linked to Sardinian wine-making ran, “Only
he who knows the Sards well, their way of life, of thinking, of
expressing themseves, only he who has the patience to discover
their island, can understand their wines”.
This represents a reflection of the whole of Sardinia and its
inhabitants, the same variety of countryside, bittersweet, mysterious,
like the panorama of precious wines with strong and delicate shades,
like the character of the Sards, so varied and changeable from
one area to another, though everywhere straightforward and sincere.
AVANTI
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