HISTORICAL OUTLINE 

This variety of vine, is usually called Calabrese, a supposition is that the name Calarvisi comes from Calauria, a Greek island, and that it was imported during the Hellenic colonization in Sicily.

The name Calarvisi should derive from “Calea”=Sicilian synonym of “racina” (grape) and from “Aulisi= from Avola, so Calaulisi=grape from Avola.

Mendola in 1868 said that this variety of vine, was cultivated in the provinces of Agrigento, Catania and Siracusa; in 1870 Angelo Nicolosi enumerates the variety “one of the species most valuable for wine, cultivated in Sicily”.

At the end of 1800 some documents of the Minister of the Agriculture reported that the variety of vine Nero d’Avola was cultivated, in small quantities in the province of Catania, and in big ones in Caltanissetta’s province. As Carpentieri reports in 1920, in the post-phylloxera epoch Nero d’Avola vines, were cultivated in very big quantities in the provinces of Ragusa and Siracusa as much to become the variety of black grape prevailing.

After the Second World War, the Nero d’Avola was widely spread in the provinces of Siracusa,Caltanissetta, Ragusa and in good percentage even in those of Agrigento, Messina and Catania.

AMPELOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION

Bud 10-30 cm

Expanded, cottony, whitish, sometimes with red spots on the sides.

Top Leafs

Pentalobate a little drop-shaped.

Basic Leafs

From little to accentuated pentalobate or nearly all in one piece, the colour is golden green, the lower part it’s a bit whitish, grey green colour.

Adult Leafs

Medium or big (16-23cm), round; practically all in one piece, sometimes trilobate, rarely pentalobate; the colour is intense green on the top part, and light green an the lower side.

Bunch

Big and medium size (length 18-27 cm),  cylindrical shape, and cylindrical-conical, winged with one or rarely two short wings, frequently with a medium wing. Evident peduncle, woody at the insertion.

Medium grape (14,6mm) ellipsoid shape, the centre is persistent and prominent; the skin is bloomy, grey bluish colour, thin but hard; the juice is colourless, the pulp is soft, the taste is sugary and a bit tannic; grape seed 2-1 per grape.

AGRONOMICS CHARACTERISTICS

Generic characters

Vigour: medium

Production: good and constant

Fertility of the female screw: good

Pruning: It’s suitable either for the mixed pruning (guyot) or for the short one (shrub or spur pruned cordon). To prefer the spur pruned cordon for the uniformity of the ripening of the grapes.

Affinity of the graft: rootstock 140 RU and 1103 P.

Soils: it prefers calcareous untied soils and calcareous clayey medium mixed ones.

Climatic and environment conditions: Medium altitude hills, ventilated and if possible situated at east, south-east.

Resistance to vineyard diseases: Very sensible to oidium. It suffers humidity and rain and humidity during the harvest

Harvest: from the first until the last decade of September.