Albana is one of the main white varieties of Romagna. The first sign of his presence in this region dates 1300 when Pier De Crescenzi wrote that Albana was one of the best grape varieties grown in Romagna at that time. Later Tanara (1654) described Albana as one interesting grape to produce a very delicate wine.  

In the middle of the 17^th century several citations reported that Albana was the main cultivated variety around Cesena area and the hills close to Dozza (Imola), Riolo, S.Lucia delle Spianate, Terra del Sole e Castrocaro, Bertinoro, Cesena, Longiano e Montiano resulted as the  best performing sites (Grandi, 1879).

The Albana intra-variety variability has been pointed out from the past:  Molon (1906), reported the presence of different Albana biotypes. Cosmo e Polsinelli (1952-1960) stated the variety unicity, which was confirmed by the results of clonal selection conducted during the 1970s at the Bologna University (Faccioli e Marangoni, 1971; Intrieri et al., 1992).

Currently, the Albana clones are in number of seven and six of them date back to the 1970’s. The main areas of cultivation in Emilia Romagna region are located between Forli-Cesena, Ravenna and Bologna provinces and the cultivated area  corresponds to 1400 hectares  in 2010 (ISTAT-Censimento Agricoltura, 2010), with 50 % decrease respect to the 2000  (ISTAT, 2000).

Albana grape are mainly used to obtain  still wine, traditionally consumed in the area of production, Romagna.  The evolution of enological technique has improved the organoleptic traits of these wines and has increased the production of raisin wine obtained by the vinification of dried grapes.

Albana wines showed a very intense aroma profile, with mainly fruity nuances and a firm structure.  

Albana of Romagna DOCG may be produced dry, sweet, raisin  and even sparkling wines.