Sangiovese is an iconic grapevine in Central Italy. Sangiovese grapes are used for producing the Tuscan red wines Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti Classico and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, known worldwide for their fine quality. Local ecotypes or somatic variants of Sangiovese have slightly different compositions of berry metabolites. Each wine district claims the peculiarity of local wines derived from the unique combination of local ecotypes grown in the local microclimate.
IGA has applied a proprietary pipeline for identifying somatic mutations in ten ecotypes of Sangiovese. Tuscan ecotypes - grown in Central Italy on the Tyrrenian side of the Apennines - differ from one another for dozens of somatic SNPs. Each Tuscan ecotype has a similar level of somatic diversity with clones grown on the Adriatic side of the Apennines, collectively known as ecotype ‘Romagnolo’. The model of intravarietal diversity in Sangiovese is a star-shaped tree, with predominant private SNPs in each clone and a minority of SNPs shared between pair of clones.
Applied research funded by Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo