The Vineyards of Venice

What's the point of going to Venice if all you do is follow the tour groups along the Rialto-San Marco axis, and the Murano-Burano glass-making, lace-making excursion? You've got to go further, out past the Grand Canal and the Lido, and find the beating heart of the Lagoon.

There are perhaps 300 islands in the lagoon (in addition to the 100 or so that make up what most people think of as "Venice"). And two vineyards. One, the Orto di Venezia on the island of Sant'Erasmo, is a respectable six hectares, and produces a very pleasant white wine with its plantings of Malvasia d'Istria, Vermentino and Fiano.

The other, on Mazzorbo, is a single hectare of a variety called Dorona, which I hadn't even heard of until yesterday. It's produced by Venissa, a project of the well-known Bisol producer in Prosecco, the wine-growing region to the north of Venice. The Bisol family's particular interest is the restoration of the vast and threatened lagoon. They found an three curious vines on an abandoned parcel of land on Massorbo, a forgotton variety identified as Dorona di Venezia. On other islands they found more specimens, a hundred plants in all. From these vines they propagated a sufficient number to create a one-hectare vineyard whose first crop, harvested in 2010, will be bottled next spring (half bottles and magnums only) and released in November of 2012. The yields was half what you might expect for a red, a quarter of what Bisol gets in Prosecco, so the Dorana is a big-bodied wine,with an antriguing nutty aroma, rich and satisfying, with a clean, mineral finish, close to a Ribolla Gialla in appearance and mouthfeel. (Understandable if you also haven't heard of that grape either; it's also indiginous to the northeast of Italy and has a passionate group of followers that I wrote about last December.) The wine will be a collector's item, a curiosity, but it's a good example of what you can do with a an abandoned plot of land behind a wall on an island in the lagoon, if you have the will, the patience, the technical expertise and the money.