Mysterious Origins of the Italian Wine Formerly Known as Tocai
DNA researchers have found connections to a lost French grape, but it is far more complicated than that.
The Friuli-Venezia-Giulia (FVG) grape Tocai Friulano is probably, inauspiciously, most known for its part in the multi-decade legal battle by Hungary to prevent the word “Tocai” from being used in Italy, because of its similarity to their own famous Tokaji wine. From 2008, when the Council for the European Union finally ruled in the Hungarians’ favor, Italian wine labels could no longer use the controversial term, and are now labeled just Friulano. Strangely, the grape is still officially called Tocai Friulano, at least according to Italy’s National Catalog of Grape Varieties. So, while in English most people now refer to it as simply Friulano, technically that’s the wine name, not the grape name. (And wineries that make varietal wines from this grape outside of Europe — such as Channing Daughters in New York — can still call it Tocai Friulano.)
Though long thought to be an indigenous Italian grape, or perhaps — with the Tokaji association — an import from Hungary, recent vine research has raised questions about Tocai Friulano’s origins. When I first started looking into this, it was merely as additional insight for a Friulano tasting I was conducting to better understand these wines. As I began this journey…
