I_Borboni is a leading producer and champion of Asprinio di Aversa, an ancient white wine varietal with tree-hugging vines. The winery, which I visited in May, is situated in the town of Lusciano, about halfway between the two provinces where Asprinio is produced, Naples and Caserta. The appellation takes its last name from Aversa, the town in Caserta around which most of the vineyards are found. To grow Asprinio, I Borboni supports a traditionally Etruscan viticultural system known as vite maritata (“married vine”) by which the vines wrap around the tree trunks of poplar trees and climb to heights of 15 metres. This poses special challenges for the grape pickers, hence the made-to-measure scala napoletana.

The wine grower’s Neapolitan ladder is typically only 30 cm (about 1 ft) wide, with steps spaced 40-50 cm (15-20 inches) apart in accordance with the length of the climber’s lower leg. The spacing allows him to plant his foot on one rung and wedge his knee beneath the one directly above it, thereby stabilizing his position as he picks grapes, loads them into a basket and lowers it to the ground on a rope.

Can the origins of the rickety old ladder in Beuys’s sculpture be traced to the Asprinio vineyards of Naples and Caserta provinces? Two points count against the hypothesis:

1. Beuys’s ladder is too short to reach the heights of the poplar trees
2. The artist is said to have purchased the ladder from a landlord in Amalfi.

That said, maybe there are shorter ladders required for younger trees. Or maybe the artist used a segment cut from a longer ladder. The Amalfi Coast is only 23 km (about 37 miles) southeast of Naples – not very far for a ladder to travel. And Beuys did not name his sculpture Scala Amalfitana, did he? In the end, this may be one more tree that art historians will need to wrap their heads around and climb.

To verify my impression I decided to conduct a comparison between the Lucciolaio and another red at hand, a 2004 Château Caronne Ste Gemme Haut-Médoc (60% Cabernet, 37% Merlot, 3% Petit Verdot). My host took out a scale and I hauled the Lucciolaio from the dinner table to the kitchen counter for the weigh-in:  These were the results:

Château Caronne Ste Gemme 1.312 kilos (2 lb 14 ounces)
Lucciolaio 1.522 kilos (3 lb 6 oz)

So why was the Tuscan red over 15 percent heavier than the Bordeaux? It surely wasn’t the wine. All wines weigh about the same – 750 grams for 750ml of water plus a few grams for the wine solids. The balance was determined by the weight of the bottles.

Whereas the average bottle weighs 500 grams, about the same as the one used for the Château Caronne Ste Gemme, heavier ones can weigh over twice that. (The Lucciolaio bottle, though hefty enough at roughly 750 grams, would not even qualify for the uppermost weight classification.) To their growing legion of critics, the heavyweight bottles are environmentally irresponsible. They waste glass, leave a larger carbon footprint and are more expensive to ship. Wine writer Jancis Robinson worries they may also pose a health hazard to those lugging cases of them in warehouses and wine stores. (Click here for a discussion of the heavy bottle issue.)

I’m sceptical about claims by producers that thicker, heavier glass helps their wines age more gracefully. But I do see an analogous benefit to those who drink them. The heavy lifting, performed in a sufficient number of repetitions, may tone their pouring arms and invigorate their thirst for greater wine-drinking enjoyment.

Best Addition to the Wine Vocabulary:  “Al Dente”, CRU Restaurant Wine Bar, Hoxton

This is something of a posthumous award, as the ownership of CRU has changed hands and the restaurant is closed at this writing. But we did not wish to overlook the achievement of wine expert Morgan Devine. Here is an excerpt from his nine-line description of the Domaine Gay-Coperet Moulin à Vent:

…the nose expresses violets and wild roses in abundance and the palate is pleasingly al dente – easy enough to drink but with sufficient resistance for little game birds…

Comparing the nose of the Moulin à Vent to the bouquet of violets and roses is nice though hardly unusual. It is the link between red wine and pasta that is groundbreaking. The logic to Devine’s metaphorical flourish is inescapable: 

If, (A), al dente, an Italian expression meaning “to the teeth”, is commonly used to describe the firm, desirably chewy texture of pasta and, (B), “chewy” is an accepted term in the wine lexicon for fleshy, firm-structured, full-bodied wines, then, (C), the Domaine Gay-Coperet Moulin à Vent tastes like fettuccine.

Best Redrawing of the Wine Map:  CRU Restaurant Wine Bar, Hoxton

CRU’s Morgan Devine lists Old Tbilisi, a blend of the white wine varietals Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane, as coming from the region of Georgia in Russia. With a single description of a single wine, Devine has accomplished what the tanks, bombs and resolve of Putin’s Russia could not: return the Republic of Georgia to the Motherland.