This year, a group of Italian scientists led by Professor Claudio D'Onofrio conducted extensive research on hundreds of Italian grape varieties to determine their relationships and identify synonyms and the main varieties from which Italian grape varieties originated. Unintentionally, Prokupac also interfered in the complex connections between Italian grape varieties, and fortunately we came to an extremely important discovery of one of  its parents.

However, the key determinant is Visparola grape variety, the ancestor of several grape varieties from southern and central Italy. Visparola also occurs under the synonyms Crepolino and Cascarella in Tuscany as well as Rossola and Scacco in Emilia-Romagna. Scientists have analyzed whether this variety arrived in Italy thanks to the Greeks via southern Italy, or whether the variety was originally Italian and got subsequently introduced to the Balkans by land from the west. Research has shown that Visparola is the parent of Alba Imputotato variety. For us, the variety Alba Imputotato is important because we know that the Thracian variety called Papaskarasi is a cross between Prokupac and Alba Imputotato.

Genetic mapping indicated that Vulpea grape variety (synonyms Bljuzgava, Blank Blauer, Doretta, Quaiara, Rosetta) is a descendant of Visparola. At the same time, Vulpea has a parent-descendant relationship with varieties such as Molinara, Glera, Boschera.

Scientists have not yet been able to say with certainty whether the varieties Visparola, Vulpea and Alba Imputotato originate from the Balkans or Italy. To solve the mystery, they followed descendants of these varieties and distribution of synonyms. The conclusion is that the path of the variety followed the Greek and Roman civilization. Thanks to Greek dominance, the variety reached southern Italy from Greece. Then it spread from the south to northeastern Italy, and then, thanks to the Romans, it spread to the northern Balkans.

A key moment in the research is the discovery of a secondary relationship between the cultivar Vulpea and the cultivar Battraube (Modra Batovka). Since it turned out that Battraube was the parent of Prokupac, the scientists concluded that the other parent of Vulpea was most likely from the Balkans. Similarly, second-degree relationship between Alba Imputotato and Baratcsuha Szuerke (varieties of Hungarian origin) was established, which confirmed the assumption that Visparola, Vulpea and Alba Imputotato are still closer to the Balkans if we talk about their origins.

So, the parent of Prokupac is the black Austrian variety Battraube. It is also known by the synonyms Persolet and Battreben. Battraube variety is mentioned in the book Der Rheinische Weinbau by J. Metzger written in 1827.

In the Balkans, this grape variety was known as Vingor or Modra Batovka. Nowadays, specimens of this variety were found in Croatia as part of a research project in the vineyards of Ozalj, Kosinj and Vrhovac Ozaljski (about 15 km from the Croatian-Slovenian border) (source: Vinogradi u Kosinju, I. Mance, N. Mirošević, I. Šestan).

© Doris Schneider, Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof - 76833 Siebeldingen, GERMANY

Slowly, we are putting together pieces of the mosaic and getting to know the past and present of Prokupac, the flagship autochthonous grape variety of Serbia.

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