CIAO ITALIANO Still Pignoletto,Italy I DUE AIRONI price supplier

 

  

A brief history of wines of COLLI BOLOGNESI (Bolognesi Hills) and Pignoletto: a precious casket of quality and agreability

 

When ancient Romans, around second centuries B.C., submitted and unified under the sign of the “ Lupa ”(she-wolf) the territories lived by the restless tribes of the Gauls Boi , probably they had thousand motives to do it, not excluded those connected to the agricultural wealth of such zones. The grape rows had married to alive trees, according to the use introduced by the Etruscans and developed subsequently by the Gauls . Such method in fact is called " arbustum gallicum ", it is particularly proper to the low and damp earths of the lowland, but, above all, it was increased on the hilly areas. In the majority of the cases the trees were the olives, that had found a favourable environment to their development in these hills, and also after over twenty centuries, in some areas, such cultivation is still long live and in strong resumption.

 

It has been verified that from such territories, above all those hilly sets to south-west of Bononia (the ancient name of the town of Bologna), our Latin ancestors produced wines that impassioned them a lot! The earths of the “ager bononiensis” (land around the town) were assigned and cultivated by the veterans, who fought in so many military campaigns, for which the drink form Baccus was clearly tasted and appreciated!

 

Plinius the Elder - I° sec. AD - in the chapter " Ego sum pinus laetus " drawn by the monumental work of agronomy " Naturalis Historia ", enunciates that in " apicis collibus bononiensis " (at the top of Bologna’s hills) was produced a wine sparkle and albanum (blond), very particular, but not enough sweet to be pleasant and therefore appreciated, since it is well-known that during the Imperial Age the wine was appreciated sweet, spicy and aromatized with innumerable essences, besides, always fully mature: for this reason young wines were not able to satisfy the pretentious palates of the nobility.

 

  From the fall of the Western Roman Empire - 476 AD - up to the XI° and XII° centuries, for the humanity of the old continent, a dark period passed.

 

We unanimously recognized to the Church the worth to have defended the cultivation of the grapevine.

Inside the thick and sure boundaries of convents and abbeys, the grapevine was cultivated to get that wine symbol of religiousness and continuity of faith, defending the tradition from the innumerable barbaric invasions that was overwhelming the Enotria Tellus (since anciently Italy was so called and appreciated).

 

Between alternate situations, it is arrived to the VII° sec. in which a conclusive moment is verified for the future of the agriculture and the wine. In 612 in Bobbio , in the loneliness of the Placentia hills, St. Colombano , deriving from native Ireland, was established, founding the famous monastery. Only two century after took place the first settlement of the area of the Monteveglio Abbey , about 3 kilometres from the I DUE AIRONI farm. The tradition hands down that, to be accepted and to become monks, besides the faith, the beginner had to have notions of " agriculture ". “ Our prior sent the brothers to not only spread the voice of the Christianity but also that of the crop, cultivation and rural restoration of the countries devastated by the raids of the barbarian “.

 

It is certain that the ancient Latin progenitors would not have troubled Bacchus or, still previously, the Greek Dionysos and also St. Colombano in the sacredness represented by the wine, without having realized that this nectar had for the men a manifold potentiality: make up for to the works, hedonistic and spiritual, in contrast with that of the poison !

   

Taking back the walk to the search of traces that can conduct us to the wines that we today taste, we come upon there in the biographies of the industriousness of such monk-rural, that have come up to our days, in which are mentioned the notable impulses for the development of the grapevine. They were scattered in all the Italian regions and in their migration they verified that on the Bolognese hills it was produced a good gilded and mordant “vinello” fizzy or still

 

-“ omnia alia vina in bontate excedir " …a wine superior for goodness to all the others…" and not only drunk during the liturgical practices, but also, and with joy, on the table of the noble and of the common people, gotten by Grapes and appreciate known as “ Pignole ”!

 

The centuries, which have spent for coming up to our days, have been undisputed witness of innumerable facts and citations about the wines of our splendid Bolognese hills.

 

In 1300, Pier de' Crescenzi , in the most important essay of medieval agronomy " Ruralium commordorum - book XII", describes the organoleptic characteristic of the " Pignoletto " that was drunk in that period, as the wine, over that the most produced, was also the more pleasant for agreeability and for the vivacious and gilded foam.

Agostino Gallo in “Le venti giornate dell’agricoltura” (the twenty dais of agriculture) - 1567, solicited to plant “ pignole ” grapes both for the notable production and for the florid commerce because always sought after.

 

Physician and botanist of Pope Sisto V°, Bacci , in the personnel 1596’s essay " De naturalis vinarium istoria de vitis Italiane ", affirmed the" … rare et optime …" intrinsic quality of the Pignoletto grape. So also Soderini , known Florentine agronomist, always in that years, confirmed the characteristics of it.

Trinci - 1726 - underlines the characteristics of such vine: we can recognise the today's pignoletto almost in its totality of such affirmations, not to say that they are the same.

 

Further confirmations have brought in the 1881’s Bullettino Ampelograficho , in which is named the Pignoletto grape produced in the hills set to south of the town of Bologna, whose similarity with the actual production is amazing, and don't leave more entrance to other doubts: actual Pignoletto is the same of our more antique traditions.

 

The Pignoletto, through different appellatives and characteristics, changed only for the time passing, it can be found also today with the same fundamental organoleptic tastes: a unique wine rich of peculiarity with its particular bitterish aftertaste. It is well-known that such wine is considered the "King of the Bolognese Hills ", but also the other typologies produced in these handkerchiefs of hilly, sloping earth, are decidedly exclusive, frizzy or still, typical and characteristic. All wines are submitted to the D.O.C ministerial disciplinary that safeguards the qualities for a more and more careful attention to the demanding consumer.

The town of Bologna, known for it’s ancient University, for the rich cousin (remember the “ragù alla Bolognese”- Bolognese meat sauce) is also famous for being “godereccia” (pleasure-loving) and an anonymous author of two centuries ago, good expert of our town and our dishes coined this motto:

“At table there is silence when you eat well but drink badly, in Bologna at table you always have laughter and clamours!!"