Il vino nella storia di Venezia Vigneti e cantine nelle terre dei dogi tra XIII e XXI secolo Il vino nella storia di Venezia Biblos Biblos Venice and Viticulture Vines and Wines: the legacy of the Venetian Republic Venice and Viticulture Vines and Wines: the legacy of the Venetian Republic edited by Carlo Favero Using wine as one’s theme in recounting the long and complex history of Venice offers the reader an original insight into the past of the city and the territories it once ruled, a new way of looking at the monuments of a glorious past whose traces are still to be found in churches, art collections, libraries, public squares … and in gardens and vineyards. This is a book to read and a reference work for future consultation; a book that recounts not only history but also developments in technology and customs. The story told here covers the city’s links with the wine from its mainland and overseas possessions but also the wine produced within the lagoon itself. This is a relationship that dates back centuries, with the city’s magazeni and bacari serving at different points in history to satisfy the public taste for the different types of Malvasia and Raboso. And as the wine trade flourished, the Venetians showed all their entrepreneurial flair in serving markets throughout the known world. Indeed, it was in attempting to find even more distant markets for the Malvasia from Crete the Venetian nobleman Pietro Querini would end up shipwrecked on the Lofoten islands close to the Arctic circle, ironically discovering a new product himself: the stock fish (baccalà) that would then become very popular in Venice and the Venetian Republic. The history of Venice and wine is an important one, revealing how much a role vineyards play in the identity of this region. And the places discussed include those in which Venice itself becomes DOC, its wines produced by a Consorzio which may be a young company but has a long history behind it, its wines being the fruit of the union of DOC Piave with the equally historic DOC Lison-Pramaggiore. With the eager backing of producers in Treviso and Venice, this is an enterprise that aims to promote both the quality of Venice’s wines and the skill of its vine-growers and wine-makers. Giorgio Piazza President of the Consorzio Vini Venezia INDEX PREFACE ESSAYS Carlo Favero ................................................................................................. 9 The Palladian Villa Zeno at Cessalto The Administration of a Wine-making Estate in the Sixteenth-Seventeenth Century INTRODUCTION Andrea Peressini ....................................................................................... 168 Alvise Zorzi ................................................................................................. 10 Venetian Glass on Tableware From the Middle Ages to the Present Day Rosa Barovier Mentasti............................................................................ 194 PART I Malvasia Venice and its Hinterland: The Identity of a Region Wine, Legislation, Commerce Carlo Favero ............................................................................................... 14 and the Expansion of the Venetian Republic Michela Dal Borgo, Danilo Riponti ......................................................... 218 Venice and Wine: Recovering Things Past Attilio Scienza ............................................................................................ 30 DOCUMENTS The History of Wine Shops in Venice From the old magazen to the modern sports bar Wine Duties charged in the Venetian Republic Ivan Buonanno .......................................................................................... 64 Michela Dal Borgo ................................................................................... 236 Ritual, Occasion and Venue: The Consumption of Wine in Venice Wine Merchants in 1778 Giampiero Rorato ...................................................................................... 86 Michela Dal Borgo ................................................................................... 240 The “Ombra”, An institution that has outlived the Venetian Republic Shops selling Malvasia - 1 July 1762 Giuseppe Gullino ....................................................................................... 98 Michela Dal Borgo ................................................................................... 242 The wine cellar of Pietro Donà, PART II Venetian Ambassador to Pope Pius VI (1786-90) Michela Dal Borgo ................................................................................... 244 Venice and its Mainland after the Treaty of Campo Formio Giampiero Rorato .................................................................................... 104 Reports on the Wines of the Veneto Submitted to Venice’s Deputati all’Agricoltura (18th Century) Viticulture and Wine from Istria to Dalmatia Michela Dal Borgo ................................................................................... 246 Vineyards, Wines and Human Endeavour Andrea Pitacco ......................................................................................... 122 Picolit from Friuli Picolit from Conegliano The Wines of Venice and Friuli Venezia Giulia Michela Dal Borgo ................................................................................... 252 Walter Filiputti ......................................................................................... 138 PART III Renascent Vineyards Carlo Favero ............................................................................................. 146 Rediscovering the Old Vines of the Venetian Lagoon Manna Crespan, Gabriella De Lorenzis, Carlo Favero, Serena Imazio, Daniele Migliaro, Jacopo Nardi, Andrea Pitacco, Attilio Scienza ....................................... 152 Preface Aiming to serve as the basis for a modern history of oenology within Venice, this book brings together essays by some of the greatest experts on the history of the city’s relationship with wine. Historical events and changes in norms and regulations clearly mark the history not only of Venice but also of its wine. And it is the multi-faceted consequences of those changes which provide the key to interpreting the story which unfolds here. This explains the repetitions and apparent contradictions one might find within the essays: they have been maintained so as to highlight the wealth of strands which experts have to unravel as they examine the extraordinarily complex history of wine in Venice over the centuries. Carlo Favero Introduction Vineyards as far as the eye can see. That this panorama is the city’s commercial network expanded from the ports of suggested that the low life expectancy of the time was, in red wine is expressed with the same boisterous delight an integral part of the Veneto is obviously the case in the the far north to the eastern emporia that marked the end part, due to these home bingeing sessions. in dialect one finds in the work of another physician, hills of Valpolicella and the Treviso Marches, or the plain of Asian caravan routes). Over time, of course, these measures would change: along Francesco Redi, when praising his own regional wines in lands of Portogruaro; but there are also numerous other, In Venice itself very little wine was produced, and with the large number of inns and taverns for the city’s his Bacco in Toscana. Yet though people lauded the wines less famous, areas where every field and road seems to be legislation was soon introduced to make sure it was visitors – merchants, pilgrims taking ship for the Holy from the Venetian mainland or from the city’s eastern lined with vines. Such plants are a characteristic feature of produced correctly. Thus in 1050 a law laid down that Land and travellers whom we would refer to as “tourists” possessions, no-one seems to have mentioned those from the Veneto landscape; they form part of our identity. grapes should be properly pressed, with another measure (particularly numerous during the Carnival period) – there the islands of the lagoon and estuary areas. Gian Francesco Notwithstanding catastrophes and epidemics, this has been in 1094 requiring that those treading the fruit had were a range of taverns and wine shops for the locals, Busenello, for example, was undoubtedly a true son of the case since the dawn of history, when the first Veneti – “covered feet”. Meanwhile, imports continued to grow each with their specific characteristics. The magazeni, a Venice. However, while he wrote – and wrote! – verse a people of skilled farmers and horse breeders – moved and grow. The Venetians liked their wine, perhaps a little word which still figures in the name of a number of the descriptions of the place in the seventeenth-century, into this region of unpredictable rivers and watercourses, too much: published by the historian Gino Luzzatto, the city’s calli, were divided into bastioni and sanmarchi (or singing the praises of “Dear, gallant wine, Wine for each creating here a civilization which, over time, would form a fourteenth-century account books of the San Tomà branch sanmarcheti) and were responsible for the sale of wine hour of the day, / Wine blessed by both Heaven and Earth”, close alliance with Rome and produce the wonder that is of the famous Morosini family reveal that per capita by the jug rather than by the glass. Then there were the he has nothing to say on the local produce. Secretary to Venice itself. consumption could be massive. But the market had its malvasie that served rather