It was considered a native of Tuscany by De Astis (1937) ,although lacking of reliable scientific evidences. Breviglieri and Casini (1964) report a detailed description claiming that there has been a bit of confusion about this variety, perhaps due to the fact that for a couple of centuries, when Trinci (1726) illustrated the grape varieties grown in Tuscany, it has been included in the Canaiolo varieties a ’Canaiolo Colore’ that it should be something else.
Gallesio, describes the "Colorino" differently from ’Canaiola‘, saying that the former has small bunches and berries, sparse, with black skin, very rich in colour, ’so much that is used to give colour to wines’. Even Di Rovasenda spoke about a ‘Colorino’ (apart from the ‘Colore’) with small berries.
In the monograph on ‘Viticulture of Florence’ Fonseca report of a ‘Colour’ grape variety (syn. "Colorino", "Uva colore," "Colore Canaiolo", "Canino") that does not match ‘Colorino of Valdarno’ described by Breviglieri and Casini (1964). These authors reported that in Tuscany, as well as this variety that has red leaves and branches, there was a second variety with no reddish shoots and grapes a little less colorful. The name of this grape variety is often followed by the suffix of the area of origin or diffusion and is related to the character of a skin very rich in colour. For this reason they were called Colorino (Colorino of Pisa, Colorino American, Colorino of Lucca, Colorino of Valdarno) other grape varieties that shared the high anthocyanin content but morphologically and genetically different, as pointed out by Pisani et al., (1997). The grapevines Abrostine and Abrusco, reported in the National Register of Grapevine Varieties, have characteristics quite similar to ‘Colorino’, and the latest studies showed that the molecular profile of ‘Abrusco’ is the same of several clones of the culltivar ‘Colorino’ (Ducci et al., 2012).