Schiava

Schiava is the traditional red of Alto Adige, the German-speaking province at Italy's northern edge, where it is called Vernatsch and where it was until recently the most planted variety of any colour.

It makes one of the lightest red wines in Europe. The colour is pale ruby, the tannin is barely present, the acidity is fresh, and the flavour runs to strawberry, raspberry and a distinctly confected note that almost everyone describes as cotton candy or bubblegum, with a faint bitter-almond finish.

It is served cool, often at cellar temperature or lower, and it is the everyday wine of Bolzano's bars and taverns — the local equivalent of a light beer, drunk with speck and rye bread rather than contemplated.

The best zones are Santa Maddalena on the slopes above Bolzano and Lago di Caldaro by the lake, where the reflected warmth helps a late-ripening grape in an alpine climate.

Plantings have fallen dramatically as growers replaced it with Pinot Grigio and Gewurztraminer, which earn far more per hectare. What remains is increasingly old vines on the best sites, and a small group of producers making serious, structured versions that make the case for keeping it.

In Germany it is Trollinger, the signature grape of Württemberg, where it makes a similarly light, pale red drunk locally in enormous quantities and exported almost never. In Britain it was long known as Black Hamburg, grown under glass as a table grape.