Sangiovese : The Origins

Sangiovese is the probably the king of red wines of central Italy.

This amazing kind of grape variety it is strongly present in every area of the central italy, and many clonal varieties continues to give evidence of its indisputable qualities thanks to the many expressions of the territories where it is cultivated.

But what about the Real Origin of this variety?

Recent studies actually tries to demonstrate that the place of origin of Sangiovese is the Apennine area between Tuscany and Romagna. And in fact even today in this specific area we can actually find lots of Sangiovese Vineyards.

 The same study highlights the variability and the adaptation of Sangiovese grape.

Anyway the origin and the provenience of Sangiovese is very difficult to identify.

"The only information about one of the most known and cultivated vines in Italy are very fragmentary and not very reliable. In order to get some information it is necessary to wait for the sixteenth century, when Soderini, in 1590, describes it in his treatise "The cultivation of vines" saying: "the Sangiocheto or Sangioveto is a remarkable vine for its regular productivity".

However in general we believed the famous grape was already known more than 2000 years ago and it was used by Etruscans for the production of wine.

What about the origin of the name? 

When it come about the origin of the name is obiviously uncertain

There are anyway few valid hypotheses: "someone wants it to come from San Giovanni (St. John), someone wants it to come from dialectal forms (from "san giovannina", because of its early budding), someone thinks it comes from Giove's blood (Sanguis Jovis)."

But as we says, the origin, especially the name birth still today uncertain.

In this article as you understood  we were trying to track the origins of the Sangiovese grape, in the next article we will try to analyze the quality of this amazing kind of grape.