by Mario Fregoni
Excerpt from the article of the same name by Professor Mario Fregoni, Professor of Viticulture at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Piacenza, published in the catalogue of the exhibition Wine between sacred and profane [P. 279-284] set up in Casanatense in 1999.
For millennia and hundreds of centuries the origin of wine bubbles was considered mysterious. An idea of the state of knowledge can be deduced from the statements of Bacci, the Pope’s doctor, author of a work of 7 books in Latin, which no wine-growing country in the world possesses other than Italy, entitled De naturali vinorum historia de vinis Italiae (Rome, 1596). Describing the characteristics of Albano wine he underlines: “The fact that the bubbles emitted by this type of wine are very lively, some very young writers attribute to a fortuitous event”, that is, to the closing of the barrel that preserved the “fumes” of the wine. Bacci instead thought “that these spontaneous fumes in generous wines are either composed of the essence and nature of the wine itself, or are undoubtedly particular characteristics of the structure of the wine”. 
Later it was thought that these were chemical phenomena, the same ones that also produced alcohol. It was Pasteur (1822-1895), with his research on fermentation mechanisms, who clarified that bubbles come from fermentation carried out by yeasts, which transform sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, a gas – the latter – that emerges from the wine and gives the bubbles.
The oldest wines with bubbles (today they would be called sparkling) came from a single spontaneous or controlled fermentation of the sugars of musts or sweet wines, carried out in hermetically sealed terracotta amphorae. This technique was used for many centuries.
On the other hand, it is in recent centuries that sparkling and programmed sparkling wines have been obtained, obtained with two fermentations, the second of which (refermentation) has the purpose of producing bubbles. The introduction is more than sufficient to stimulate some questions: who discovered the phenomenon of sparkling wine? When? How did the ancients do it? With what?
Not to mention that the Book of Psalms (about 1000 BC) places a cup of sparkling wine in the hands of God, it is recalled that our poet Horace defined Homer as the vinosus Homerus to underline the numerous and timely references to the vine and wine present in his works, dating back to about the 9th century BC. Homer is certainly a trustworthy author and when the great Greek prophet speaks of Achilles’ shield (sculpted by Vulcan), he describes a ploughing in which the farmers were refreshed by “a man who turned, and placed in their hands a cup of sparkling wine of the sweetest Bacchus” (Iliad, XVIII book). We cannot believe that it was a simple poetic expression, for the precision of Homer and for the simple reason that in nature wine has always produced bubbles even without the provocation of man. However, in Roman times the citations are more extensive and are due to Virgil, Propertius, Lucan and Columella. […].
Dutch engraver 18th century. bunches of white and black grapes CCC.Q.IV.5.2
From these sacred texts it is clear that sparkling wine was already produced in Roman times, certainly not with current techniques, but with the refermentation of sweet wines in the containers of the time (terracotta amphorae, etc.), or with the addition of dried grapes or sweet must to already fermented base wines. To identify these wines the Romans used the terms saliens, titillans, spumans, spumescens which clearly indicate the release of bubbles from the wine, the frizzante and the spumante.
In Roman times wines with bubbles were also called aigleucos and aci-natici. The former were produced starting from the must, whose fermentation, creating the bubbles, was prevented or rather delayed by immersing the amphorae in cold water, in order to have sparkling wine (then called spumante) for a longer time. In Pompeii, a cellar was discovered with a tunnel continuously crossed by cold water, in which the doliums were placed with the must to be slowly made sparkling. The technique that is used today for the production of Moscato dell’OltrePo Pavese and Asti spumante was therefore already used by the Romans; currently the must is kept in the refrigerator – even for months – to prevent it from losing its fruity aromatic freshness during fermentation and is fermented for about a couple of months before being released for consumption. Acinatico was instead produced with must obtained from dried grapes. This was used alone or was used for the refermentation of other still wines (i.e. wines without sugar and therefore bubbles). This is the case of the sparkling process of Falernum with dried grapes of the Meroe variety (cited by Lucan). The acinazio is mentioned by Ulpian in the 100th book of De Legibus and above all by Cassiodorus (c. 490-585 AD) who was well acquainted with the acinatici of Veronese (the current Recioto and Amarone) and the “Torchiato di Fregona” (a passito from Treviso).
MIDDLE AGES, RENAISSANCE, RISORGIMENTO
In the “dark Middle Ages” there is a mention of sparkling wines from the early 1100s of the famous Salerno School, widely known for its “scientific” medical training. In the Regimen Sanitatis, a moderate consumption of sparkling wines is recommended. In the same period and later, the sparkling wines of Tuscany were mentioned, from the areas of Montecarlo and Pescia, and the French ones from the Benedictine Abbey of S. Ilaire.
It is believed that the “Tuscan Government” was born in the first centuries after the year 1000 and, as is known, consisted in rejuvenating dry wine by refermenting it with must obtained from dried grapes; initially, Lambrusca grapes (Vitis silvestris) were dried or cooked and later Vitis vinifera grapes (Sangiovese, Trebbiano toscano, Malvasia lunga del Chianti), also used to make the “Vin Santi”.
The most oenophilic Pope of all time was Paul III Farnese (1468-1549), whose very broad tastes were described by his butler, Sante Lancerio (1559). This Pope knew all Italian wines, including Razzese, which his Holiness drank to chase away the winter cold, but also the traditionally sparkling wines of Castell’Arquato (Piacenza).
During the Renaissance, gas continued to be kept in the barrels, trying to close them as much as possible and keeping them at a low temperature during fermentation. To obtain refermentation, the wine was placed on fresh marc (skins), or the wine was “cut” with new must, or the grapes were dried and their deferred pressing produced a very sugary must, capable of refermenting young or old wine. In this way, wines with bubbles were obtained throughout Italy and Corsica.
Bacci argued that Acinazio can be assimilated to Retornato and Razzese. Acinazio was obtained from must that spontaneously oozed from dried grapes before their pressing (vino della gocce), but it cannot be excluded that a must so rich in sugars gave rise to a sparkling wine. Among the medieval names used for sparkling wines, we recall mordaci, piccanti, raspanti and raggienti.
Regarding the Razzese di Monterosso (Cinque Terre), Bacci claimed that the wines “sparkle softly in the glasses”. The Razzese was decanted, after the first fermentation, “into smaller vessels and entrusted to the sea and they say that with the motion of the waves it improves”. Bacci, still speaking of Acinatium (ancient) or Razzese (Ligurian), states that “from the racemes and grapes boiled with the must, these wines acquire a pleasantness, a certain “sparkling” quality that makes them pleasant to the taste, a golden or gem-like clarity together with the purity of the substance, such that they remain uncorrupted for a long time”. The author in question recalls that in the Verona area a lot of red wine was produced, Acinatium or Acinazio, “which gives the palate a pleasant “spicy” sensation, acquired in the boiling with those grapes”.
In Desenzano Bacci reports Vernacce that make you go mad. “It is a wine that gives those who taste it a pleasant sensation of sparkling”. Among the Trebulani (Trebbiani) he indicates a vigorous one similar “to the Cretico, golden in substance, clear, sparkling with bubbles, and that can be preserved for three years”. Bacci indifferently used the terms “frizzante” and “spumante” to indicate wines that had “taken the foam” spontaneously or provoked. According to Bacci, in Velletri with cooking they used to reduce the grapes in different quantities (for example: less for those from the hills and more for those from the plains) and then add to the cooked grapes a tenth part of sapa (wine reduced to a third by boiling) still in fermentation. It is very reminiscent of the cuvée technique of sparkling wines. Regarding Monterano wine, Bacci reports that “it makes the eyes of those who drink it water, rising with a fresh exhalation while pouring it into the glass and also while drinking it”; obviously the exhalation was given by the CO2 bubbles.
At the time of Bacci other doctors dealt with sparkling wines, such as Fracastoro and Pisanelli (in favor of consumption) and Conforto (against sparkling wines).
It was also in the Renaissance that the term ispumante was used to indicate wines with bubbles. In particular, Francesco Redi (1626-1698) in his Bacco in Toscana exalted Moscadello di Montalcino.
A truly exceptional written testimony for Italy belongs to the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, namely the golden poem (in Latin) by Father Rodolfo Acquaviva (1658-1729), a Jesuit who ran the order’s college in Montepulciano. The poem, entitled Rubri apud Politianos Vini confectio stylo Virgiliano descripta, deals with the art of making wine among the Poliziani, that is, the winemakers of Montepulciano (Siena). Father Rodolfo’s poem is compared to that of another illustrious scientist, namely Francesco Redi, but in Father Rodolfo’s work we find traces of Dante’s influence in the concept according to which the sun becomes the vine’s humour, while this differs from Galileo’s work, in which he refers to the lunar influences on wine (Camporesi, 1988).
But let’s get to the “scientific” content of P. Rodolfo’s poem. He talks about the grape harvest and recommends selecting the best bunches, as well as trimming the bunches before pressing: “lift the bunches patiently, one by one, with your left hand and cut off the tip” or even “from the middle down”. He adds the reason: “such grapes do not know how to ripen enough and dye their fibres the right colour”; that is, they are unripe and reddish berries (poor in colour). These practices are not new, but they are being lost, even if they belong to the small but great secrets for making excellent wine. Like the one, always described by P. Acquaviva, of leaving the grapes piled up for six days before pressing them: “do not pour all the grapes into the vat in one day”. The practice will later be perfected with the carbonic maceration of Beaujolais, another technique known for a long time in Italy. The poem then describes in detail the pressing of the grapes and the flow of the must from the hole at the bottom of the vat. […].
What is surprising is the coincidence of the life period of P. Rodolfo Acquaviva with that of the Benedictine Dom Perignon (legendary friar of the abbey of Hautvillers, to whom, in the absence of documents, the dates of birth and death of the Sun King Louis XIV have been assigned, that is to say 1638-1715), who in Champagne perfected the refermentation in the bottle for the production of the legendary French sparkling wine of the same name.
It will be said that one (refermentation) was done in the vat with hot concentrated must and the other in the bottle, but both were always obtained with a sweet must, because it must be remembered that Dom Perignon never used sugar in the liqueur de tirage. Cane sucrose was then very rare and expensive.
It was Napoleon III (1808-1870) who established a prize for the extraction of sugar from beetroot. For history, Dom Perignon in the first experiment, placed in 1670, seems to have used a sugary syrup (must?) with peach blossoms. However, both P. Rodolfo and Dom Perignon did not invent anything technologically important, but only adapted or perfected a methodology already known in Roman times. However, due to the contemporaneity of the two illustrious wine “fathers” of the Church, P. Rodolfo can certainly be adopted as the Italian Dom Perignon. […]
CONCLUSIONS
The pleasure of bubbles is, therefore, millenary and only recently has their positive influence on the absorption of alcohol, on digestion and on the gustatory appreciation of food been scientifically clarified, due to the bonds that are created with saliva; we must also add the euphoric effect typical of sparkling wines sought by man even before the discovery of wine, through drinks derived from the fermentation of the sap of palm, birch, manna ash, etc…
The historical excursus clearly shows that the ancient Romans consumed sparkling wines, first as spontaneous sparkling wines and then as sparkling wines produced by adding musts or other sugary products to dry wine. The Romans must be considered the true inventors of programmed “refermentation”, which was perfected over the following centuries, up to the use of refermentation in the bottle (perfected in Champagne but already used in Roman dolium) and finally in the autoclave. From a historical perspective, we can say that Italy has made a great contribution to the discovery of the principle of refermentation, which represents the production basis of modern “programmed” sparkling wines. The existing ancient written Latin documentation is irrefutable, while the French, despite having the merit of having produced Champagne (surpassing the “Italian masters”) with refermentation in the bottle resistant to high pressure, are quite lacking in written documents and the story of Don Perignon itself is a legend, fascinating but lacking in documentary evidence.
It is worth asking ourselves: what is the difference, in terms of the guiding principle, between the refermentation of the Romans carried out in terracotta doliums (amphorae) and that of the champenois obtained in the bottle? None! Both produce bubbles, the “prise de mousse”!
Sparkling wines (including classic or traditional sparkling wines) have evolved over time, because at first they were predominantly sweet (even Champagne was born sweet) and later turned towards dry. This character has allowed sparkling wines to be used both as an aperitif and as accompaniments to festive events and as wines for the whole meal. It can therefore be concluded by stating that sparkling wine is a wine of great and ancient civilization and refined winemaking art. The Romans and Italians have substantially contributed to discovering the principles that govern sparkling wines and to making them evolve towards the high technology that we all know today. No less important was the Roman and Italian participation in identifying the native and traditional vines most suitable for sparkling wine production and in the search for the wine-growing areas best suited to producing bases (wines suitable for making quality sparkling wines). If on the viticultural and technological level Italy has all the prerogatives to become the largest producer of sparkling wines, on the side of commercial organization the French, it must be recognized, have been able to anticipate the Italians, especially by valorizing the denominations of origin.
The editorial is an extract from the article of the same name by Professor Mario Fregoni, Professor of Viticulture at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Piacenza, published in the catalogue of the exhibition Wine between Sacred and Profane [P. 279-284] set up in Casanatense in 1999.
To learn more:
CATALOGUE – Wine between sacred and profane: vine and wine in the Casanatensi collections. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, 1999
The images illustrating the editorial are taken from the following works:
Flowers, fruits, mushrooms and birds painted in nature Ms. 1913
J.W.Weinmann, Phytanthoza iconographia… B.I.27 CC
G.W.Knorr, bunch of muscatel grapes CCC.M.II.15
Dutch engraver 18th century. bunches of white and black grapes CCC.Q.IV.5.2