The Malvasia di Candia Aromatica grape variety presents a particularly rich and complex aromatic profile, encompassing a wide range of primary aromas such as orange, citron, lemon, fruity notes of peach and apricot, and floral notes of acacia, freesia, and lavender. Malvasia di Candia Aromatica is primarily cultivated in Emilia, particularly in the provinces of Piacenza, Parma, and Reggio Emilia, where it is the main component of a number of dry and semi-sweet wines, available in still, slightly sparkling, sparkling, and passito versions. The grapes are also the most important component of Malvasia dell’Oltrepò Pavese DOC in Lombardy. This latter wine can also be dry, sweet, still, semi-sparkling, or sparkling.
The name Malvasia refers to many grape varieties, most of them white, geographically distributed throughout Italy. Although of different origins, all these grape varieties share some basic characteristics: they all have, to varying degrees of intensity, a spicy fragrance of musk and apricot and relatively high residual sugar levels. These characteristics make the Malvasia group of grape varieties particularly suitable for the production of sparkling wines and passiti (dessert wines). The name “Malvasia” derives from a contracted variation of Monembasia, a Byzantine stronghold perched on the rocks of a promontory in the south of the Peloponnese, where sweet wines were produced and then exported throughout Europe by the Venetians under the name of Monemvasia. The wine made from this variety became extremely popular, so much so that Venice was full of taverns called Malvase, dedicated to its consumption.
