Fragolino is an Italian

red wine Red wine is a type of wine made from dark-colored grape varieties - (red grapes.) The color of the wine can range from intense violet, typical of young wines, through to brick red for mature wines and brown for older red wines. The juice fro ...

produced in the

Veneto Veneto, officially the Region of Veneto, is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the Northeast Italy, north-east of the country. It is the fourth most populous region in Italy, with a population of 4,851,851 as of 2025. Venice is t ...

region with

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

, or ''uva fragola'' (). This kind of grape does not belong to the ''

Vitis vinifera ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, is a species of flowering plant, native to the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean region, Central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern ...

'' species, but to the related ''

Vitis labrusca ''Vitis labrusca'', the fox grape, is a species of grapevines belonging to the ''Vitis'' genus in the flowering plant family Vitaceae. The vines are native to eastern North America and are the source of many grape cultivars, including Catawba, ...

'' and it was introduced to fight a plague of a parasite named

phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belongs to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs); orig ...

, which was destroying the European grapevine and wine production. This American grapevine was more resistant to the parasites. Venetian winemakers had the idea to make wine directly with this new grape, and this wine was delicious. Sweet and refreshing, the fragolino is a summer wine, with a delicate aftertaste of strawberry. Moreover, it was inexpensive and became popular around the Venetian area, where it was produced. However, fragolino is considered a very low quality wine among connoisseurs. Today it is almost impossible to find the real fragolino because its commerce was banned by the EU and the Italian government. Many stories have been told about the fragolino ban. The more official one is that it was banned because it is difficult to control

methanol Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical compound and the simplest aliphatic Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with the chemical formula (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often ab ...

levels during wine production and methanol can be poisonous. Some science revisionists argue that the ''Vitis labrusca'' was actually responsible, due to its resistance, to the spread of the phylloxera plague in Europe, and it was banned for this reason: but this confusing version of the story ignores the historical fact of its importation in Europe, France first, was made in the 19th century for the exact opposite reason, when the phylloxera was already destroying the ''Vitis vinifera'' cultivations.The fragolino wine
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References

{{Reflist Wines of Veneto

See also

References