Is Pigato Vermentino?

I’m confused.

Those that know me, know it happens often and with little effort.

But this is a real noodle scratcher. And I suspect might confuse even the most knowledgable of people. Maybe?

I recently started working at a restaurant where the entire wine list is Italian. I thought I knew a thing or three about Italian wines, but flipping through the list proves that simply wasn’t the case. There are regions I know, but within them are provinces I don’t. Toss in indigenous grape varieties that grow nowhere else in the world and you might realize that the learning curve is steep.

As I come across the different grapes I look them up to learn more about them. One grape I saw on a label was Pigato. So I reach for Jancis, Julia and José’s book Wine Grapes and under Pigato is says see Vermentio. This is very common, many grapes have synonyms and are called something different in other parts of the world and often in other parts of the same country.

Paraphrasing from Wine Grapes, Vermentino is believed to have come to the  French Island of Corse in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. But the earliest mention is from 1658 in Montaldeo in Piemonte.

Further reading indicates that “Morphological and DNA comparisons have clearly established the Favorita, Pigato and Vermentino are one and the same varieties?”

But what is interesting is that one producer in Italy has two different wines, one Vermentino and one Pigato.

What’s a somm to do?

I emailed them and the response was better than anything I could read.

“Pigato leaf is bigger and it has dark green colour, Vermentino leaf is smaller and less dark.
Pigato cluster is more compact compared to Vermentino cluster. Pigato it is also considered a clone more aromatic. Furthermore we can produce both because there are two different policy documents in the DOC: one for Vermentino and the other for Pigato. (With policy document, I hope this word is correct in english, I mean the legislation/the winemaking rules that you must respect for including your wines in the DOC)
Finally the vinification process is our choice to mark their own characteristics, improving the differences between them. In fact the aim of skin contact is the enrichment of aromatic profile, especially at the nose. From the other side I think Vermentino is very mouthfull and mineral, for this reason I prefer to use white vinification with batonnage on noble lees.”

One thing I can gain from this response is that maybe there has been some clonal shifts in the vineyard. Similar to the way Pinot Gris can have two colours in the same bunch, grapes mutate more than Ninja Turtles and maybe this is what is happening in the vineyards of the Bianchi in Riviera Ligure di Ponente. Possible?

And of course treating the grapes a little differently in the winery can promote differences in aromas and flavours. But the fact that there is such a clear difference in the vineyard could mean that there may actually be two different grape varieties at play here?

Whatever the case is, the wines are fantastic and worth seeking out.

We are pouring the Vermentio by the glass currently, and I would be happy to open some Pigato as a side by side comparison should you want to find out for yourself and help me shake this confusion.