Count Alexandre Pierre Odart was born in 1778. He gained world fame thanks to his research work in viticulture. In the period between 1805 and 1840, Count Odart collected 479 grape varieties from 14 countries: France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, etc. Each variety was represented by at least 10 vines. The collection was planted on  1.5 hectare plot, and year after year, Count Odart observed, described and compared varieties with each other. As a result of this long-term work, the book Universal Ampelography was published in 1845.

Descriptions of varieties in his book are not particularly long and they were made without consistent methodology as his primary goal was to make the book beneficial to vinegrowers. Nevertheless, the book is very important because it manages to define a large number of synonyms among the names of grape varieties. If we take the variety Pinot Noir as an example, we will see that throughout centuries this variety was cultivated everywhere in central and northern France and eastwards all the way to Hungary. In each region, he lists local names, so Count Odart recorded 17 synonyms for  Pinot Noir variety.

However, let's get back to our region. While describing varieties that he brought to his collection from Hungary, Count Odart also mentions CRNA RANKA (Czerna Ranka), which is also known in Hungary as VRŠAC BLACK (Noir de Versecs), or Noir de Franconie. Count Odart notes that this variety grows mainly in the vineyards of Sirmie and Banat in the vicinity of Timisoara (present day wine regions Srem and South Banat in Serbia). Also, for the history of vine growing on Fruška Gora (Srem region), his comment is very important that "red wines from Srem  were considered the best wines of Hungary until mid-seventeenth century, and then their fame was gradually taken over by Tokaji wines". Count Odart recorded his observations from the ampelographic collection and wrote that this reputation of  wines from Srem is quite justified since he determined in collaboration with his colleagues that samples of Crna Ranka or Vršac Black that arrived from Budapest are in fact the noble variety Auvernat Noir, which is also represented in France.

Indeed, Auvernat Noir is one of the ancient names of Pinot Noir in France, where it was also called Morillon Noir or Noirien.

Serbian archaeologist Sava Vetnić identified Crna Ranka as one of the grape varieties that had existed on the territory of Serbia since the Middle Ages, but have not been preserved to this day. So, we have come across exciting data to be investigated further in order to confirm whether Count Odart truly found Pinot Noir in the wine regions of Srem and Banat as he stated in his "Universal Ampelography". It should be noted that in Wine Grapes, Jose Vouillamoz stated that Pinot was widely present in the Middle Ages in a belt from France to Hungary, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Certainly, Hungary historically in those days included the territory of today's North Serbia (i.e. Srem and Banat).

(30.08.2018)

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