Incrocio Terzi

Incrocio Terzi n.1 is a deliberate creation: a cross of Barbera and Cabernet Franc made by the Bergamo geneticist and ampelographer Alessandro Terzi in the 1930s. It is not a native grape and makes no claim to be, which is why neither of the standard books on Italy’s native varieties includes it. It is nonetheless a genuine Lombard speciality, and a rather successful piece of plant breeding.

What Terzi was trying to do The aim was specific: keep Barbera’s liveliness and productivity, but add aromatic complexity, improve how the fruit held its ripeness, and refine the tannins. Barbera’s well-known weaknesses are exactly those three things, and Cabernet Franc was a logical partner for all of them. Judged against its brief, the crossing worked.

Italy’s crossing tradition Incrocio Terzi belongs to a distinctively Italian body of work alongside Incrocio Manzoni, Incrocio Bruni and Incrocio Bianco, and alongside Dalmasso’s Piedmontese crossings. That programme ran through the middle decades of the twentieth century, and its products occupy an awkward category: too modern to count as heritage, too local to count as international.

Where it grows Cultivation has always centred on Lombardy and specifically the province of Bergamo, where Terzi worked, with plantings in the Valcalepio hills and in the province of Brescia. It appears in the Terre del Colleoni DOC, which permits a varietal bottling, and in Cellatica DOC from the Brescia side. Outside those zones it is essentially unknown.

In the vineyard The cluster is medium, cylindrical to conical and moderately compact. Berries are medium-small and spherical with thick blue-black skins rich in anthocyanins and polyphenols, and the pulp is juicy and notably acidic. That skin-to-pulp ratio is where the colour and structure come from, and it is a clear inheritance from the Cabernet Franc side.

Appearance and structure The wine is deeply coloured, dry, full-bodied and moderately tannic, with the alcohol and extract to support ageing. It is markedly more structured than Barbera and more approachable than Cabernet Franc, which is precisely the middle ground Terzi was aiming at. The acidity remains high, as the Barbera parentage would suggest.

Aromatic profile The nose is intensely vinous, with dark berry fruit and a fine aromatic trace that clearly recalls Cabernet Franc, more leaf and graphite than overt herbaceousness where the fruit is properly ripe. The Barbera contribution is textural and acidic rather than aromatic. The combination is distinctive and not quite like either parent.

In the cellar The variety is suited to ageing and takes wood better than most Lombard reds of its weight, which is unsurprising given the polyphenol content of those thick skins. It also blends well, and in practice much of it is used that way in the Bergamasco. Varietal bottlings exist and are the better way to understand it.

Key expressions

• Terre del Colleoni DOC Incrocio Terzi, the varietal designation.
• Cellatica DOC reds from the Brescia side of Lombardy.
• Valcalepio blends, where it adds colour and structure.
• Bottlings from the Bergamasco cooperative, the most consistent source.

The question of aging This is a genuine ageing wine, which was part of the design. The thick skins, high polyphenol content and firm acidity carry it eight to twelve years, the dark fruit giving way to a leafier, more graphite-driven register as the tannins settle. It is more durable than most Lombard reds outside the Valtellina.

At the table The structure and acidity suit the food of the Bergamasco: casoncelli, braised and roast meats, polenta with game, and the hard alpine cheeses of the Orobie. It handles richer dishes than its obscurity would suggest. Serve it around seventeen to eighteen degrees.

Why it matters Incrocio Terzi is a rare case of a twentieth-century laboratory crossing that actually achieved what it set out to do, and then stayed put in the province where it was made. It is not heritage and it is not international, which has left it with no natural constituency. The wine is better than that position suggests.