Ampelographic and biomolecular studies on the grapevine variety ‘Aleatico’

‘Aleatico’ has been cited several times for its peculiar aromatic characteristics. It has been cultivated in Tuscany since the Middle Ages and is present in just a few other small Mediterranean areas, among which Elba Island is certainly the most famous. The previous ‘Aleatico’ clonal selection conducted in Tuscany by the ‘Dipartimento di Coltivazione e Difesa delle Specie Legnose’ permitted identifying several candidate clones, free of the main virus agent, having different morphological traits. The ampelographic work was carried out on the abovementioned presumed clones and on homologated clones cultivated in the same collection vineyard located on Elba Island. The dendrogram obtained from the cluster analysis of adult leaf OIV characters showed significant differences among the homologated clones and the presumed clones of ‘Aleatico’. In particular, biotypes ‘Alesca 59’ and ‘Alesca 60’ were morphologically different from the homologated clones and from the other candidate clones and from biotype ‘Alchi 1’, which appeared to differ the most from the other accessions. The molecular investigations conducted on 6 microsatellite loci revealed the identity among the homologated clones and the candidate clones of ‘Aleatico’ coming from Elba, except for biotypes ‘Alchi 1’, ‘Alesca 59’ and ‘Alesca 60’. In particular, biotype ‘Alchi 1’ shares an allele on 5 of the 6 loci analysed, but in locus VVM21 it has a configuration that is completely different from ‘Aleatico’, sharing an allele with the ‘Ciliegiolo’ and ‘Sangiovese’ varieties. Biotypes ‘Alesca 59’ and ‘Alesca 60’ always share an allele with ‘Aleatico’ in all of the loci analysed and, therefore, they could be closely related to ‘Aleatico’