L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano E very fall, at fruit s t a l l s a c r o s s Italy, small bas- kets of deep pur- p l e g r a p e s appear among apples and figs; their name, uva frago- l a , l i t e r a l l y " s t r a w b e r r y grapes," sounds harmless, almost playful, yet these fra- grant grapes have a curious story. They come from the United States, they helped s a v e E u r o p e a n v i n e y a r d s from disaster, and the wine made from them, once com- mon in Italian homes, is now technically illegal to sell: few foods embody such a mix of a d m i r a t i o n , p r a c t i c a l i t y , a n d … w e l l … r e b e l l i o n , a s much as uva fragola. Its story begins far from Italy's markets, in mid-nine- teenth-century Massachu- s e t t s , w h e r e E p h r a i m Wales Bull, a farmer from the town of Concord, spent years trying to grow a grape that would survive New Eng- land's cold winters. Imported European vines kept dying, so he turned to local wild varieties, planting and testing more than twenty thousand seedlings in his backyard until one finally proved right: sweet, hardy, and productive. He called it "Concord," after his hometown, and intro- duced it in 1849. The fruit quickly spread across Ameri- ca, becoming the base for grape juice, jelly, and the deep-purple church wine that often filled chalices. Within a few decades, this same variety and its cousins were heading to Europe for very different reasons. In the late 1800s, vineyards from France to Italy were being destroyed by a microscopic aphid known as phylloxera, an insect that had arrived from America and attacked the roots of Vitis vinifera, the species producing Europe's traditional wine grapes. The only roots that resisted were those of American vines like Concord, Isabella, and Clin- ton, so European growers began grafting their vines o n t o t h e s e t o u g h e r American rootstocks, sav- ing the wine industry from collapse. Alongside this tech- nical solution, some farmers simply planted the American vines because they were easy to grow, resistant to disease, and tolerant of cold, a very important characteristic in I t a l y ' s c o l d e r n o r t h e r n regions. For families who wanted grapes for eating or homemade wine, they were perfect. But why do we call Con- cord grapes uva fragola? The name refers to its sweet, per- fumed scent, which reminded p e o p l e o f s t r a w b e r r i e s (fragole) and comes from methyl anthranilate, a com- pound that gives Concord its unmistakable "grape candy" flavor. But while in the Unit- ed States this note came to define grape jelly and soft drinks, in Europe traditional winemakers often found it too intense and described it as volpino (literally "foxy," but used in Italian with the sense of "too strong", almost "unrefined"), meaning rustic and unsophisticated. Still, for many Italian households, the grape's vigor and simplicity mattered more than its pedi- gree: it grew well on a fence, it produced clusters every year, and its deep color and perfume gave jams, syrups, and desserts a beautifully dis- tinctive late-summer flavor. Moreover, it could also be used to make a simple but well-loved wine, fragolino. Now, fragolino is a bit of a controversial subject: it is sweet, often lightly fizzy, and instantly recognizable by its aromatic, almost candy-like character; it became a mod- est local favorite in the twen- tieth century, poured chilled in summer, homemade by the demijohn, and shared among neighbors. The prob- lem is that Italian law, and later European Union regula- tions, do not recognize it as wine: since the 1930s, Italy has required that all commer- cial wine come from Vitis vinifera, the classic European grape species, but uva frago- l a , l i k e t h e C o n c o r d a n d Isabella varieties it descends from, belongs instead to Vitis labrusca. Anything made from it may be delicious, but it cannot legally be sold as wine. Early bans cited potential health risks, arguing that fer- mentation of these grapes could produce higher levels of methanol if handled incor- rectly, but modern producers consider that justification exaggerated, and believe the real motive was economic and cultural, namely, protect- ing the image of European viticulture from what officials viewed as a rustic, sweet, and overly fragrant competitor. F o r d e c a d e s , t h i s r u l e pushed fragolino into a gray zone between folklore and law: people kept making it at home, and some small pro- ducers bottled it quietly for local sale, but officially it was n o l o n g e r a w i n e . B y t h e 1980s, when tourists began s e e i n g b o t t l e s l a b e l e d " F r a g o l i n o " i n s o u v e n i r shops, most of them were d r i n k i n g s o m e t h i n g e l s e entirely: regular wine fla- vored with sugar and artifi- cial strawberry essence. That commercial version, still sold today, bears little resem- blance to the genuine home- made drink that once filled Italian kitchens. The original fragolino survives mostly in memory and in private cel- lars, a symbol of self-made tradition that never fully dis- appeared. Despite its status as an o u t s i d e r , u v a f r a g o l a remains common in Italian markets, with many families buying it for eating or cook- ing, its scent alone enough to mark the shift from the hot season into fall. These grapes m a k e e x c e l l e n t j a m a n d crostata filling, thanks to t h e i r n a t u r a l p e c t i n , a n d some cooks reduce their juice into a syrup for desserts or to glaze meat; recipes circulate online showing how to make non-alcoholic mosto cotto or grape sorbet, both great ways to keep their flavor intact. Seen from today's perspec- t i v e , t h e j o u r n e y o f u v a fragola says much about how f o o d s t r a v e l a n d a d a p t : a nineteenth-century experi- m e n t i n M a s s a c h u s e t t s turned into a survival tool for European vineyards and then into a nostalgic backyard tra- dition in Italy. Each culture shaped it to its needs: Ameri- cans built an industry of juice and jelly; Italians used it for family wine and seasonal sweets. Even the legal ban, while frustrating to some, probably helped this grape keep its charm. There is also some irony in the fact that the same fruit symbolizes two opposite food i d e n t i t i e s : i n t h e U n i t e d States, Concord grapes repre- sent efficiency and modernity –pasteurized juice, conve- nience, and national brands; in Italy, uva fragola evokes the informal, slightly rebel- lious spirit of homemade pro- duction. Yet the link between t h e m i s s t r o n g a n d c l e a r , because both reflect the per- sistence of a flavor people i n s t i n c t i v e l y e n j o y , e v e n when experts dismiss it as unsophisticated. CHIARA D'ALESSIO The deep-purple of Concord grapes is synonymous with this season (Photo: Dietmar Rauscher/Dreamstime) LA BUONA TAVOLA RECIPES COOKING TIPS SEASONAL DISHES Concord: the American grape Italy loves but can't legally turn into wine

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