Plinio il Vecchio, in his “Naturalis Historia” (I
sec. d.C.), wrote about wine named “Pino
Lieto” "it is not enough sweet to be
good“, probably because the ancient romans loved very sweet wine. On this
base it can be hypothized that Pignoletto was already known in the past .
Some papers (Statuti di Savignano, 1398 ) reported some varietyes “malvasia, tribiano e ruibola vel greco”.
As well known the names Greco and Grechetto include varieties with different
traits. Some researchers hypothize the name is been linked
to their site of origin (Greece), while some others associate the name to the similarity
with the wine imported during the Middle age from the east Mediterranean. Quite
recently has been assessed the genetic identity among “Grechetto di Todi”, “Pignoletto”
and “Rebola riminese” (Filippetti et
al.,1999), while “Grechetto di
Orvieto” and “Greco di Tufo” are
different varieties.
Tanara (1654), refers to some grape “Pignole", that were grown in the hills
of Bologna area.
Pasqualini e Pasqui (1978), described the Pignoletto
as follow: “His name derived from the similarity of the cluster with the pine
cone, with small sub round greenish berries”. The same authors assess the
similarity of Pignoletto with the white French
Pinots.
In the lowlands of Bologna area Pignoletto
was present with this denomination while in the hills zone was known as
Alionzina, from the variety Alionza, also grown in the same area (Grilli, 1970; Faccioli e Marangoni, 1978; Faccioli et al., 1978).
During the
1970s, Pignoletto was confused with Riesling italico as consequence of wrong
material from the nurserys as long as Faccioli and Marangoni (1978), characterized
Pignoletto/Alionzina and Riesling
Italico, clarifying the situation.