Synonyms and homonyms of ' Malvasía ' cultivars ( Vitis vinifera L . ) existing in Spain

“Malvasia” is a common name for different grape cultivars that have long been grown in Spain. In many cases, these cultivars are noted as being aromatic, sweet, and similar to Muscat in flavour. However, not all grapes that share this name exhibit these characteristics. This study compares the Malvasia cultivars in the Spanish Denominations of Origin with those grape cultivars grown in the grapevine collection of El Encín (Alcalá de Henares, Spain) using morphological, isoenzymatic, and microsatellite analysis as well as a large bibliographic search of the studied cultivars. Despite their Malvasia denomination, some cultivars have been identified as synonyms of ‘Macabeo’, ‘Alarije’, ‘Doña Blanca’, ‘Chasselas’, or ‘Planta Nova’, all included on the official Spanish list of commercial grape cultivars. ‘Malvasía de Sitges’ and ‘Malvasía de Lanzarote’ have the characteristic flavour of Malvasia grapes and no synonyms were found among the cultivars grown in Spain, whereas ‘Malvasía Rosada’ resulted from a colour mutation in ‘Malvasía de Sitges’. Additional key words: ampelography, aromatic grapes, grapevine, microsatellites.

bunches, round, not too small berries; it requires thick, poor, and non humid soils because it has a tender grape and rots; the best wine come from poor soils.
It is not a recent mistake to call other grape cultivars by the name 'Malvasía', as Abela y Sáenz de Andino reviewed in his work (1885): The ampelography of Rovasenda mentions seventy six names of different Malvasia, with white, green, pink, violet, and black berries.The Italian ampelographer, writing about the great diversity of cultivars called Malvasia, says that he does not pretend to set up the identity or differences among the cultivars known with this name.He added that the name of Malvasía must be assigned to aromatic grapes with the special Muscat flavour, slightly bitter, although grapes without this special characteristic have been included in this cultivar.
Taking this into account, it is easy to understand how naming a cultivar Malvasía was enough to attribute to it characteristics of aromatic berries with a slightly bitter Muscat flavour.Nevertheless, many cultivars with this name do not possess such characteristics.
Before discussing the arrival of Malvasia grapes in Spain, it is necessary to historically review the different people living in the Iberian Peninsula since ancient times, especially those who migrated from the eastern Mediterranean and may have contributed to the expansion of Malvasia cultivation among the Mediterranean countries from Monemvasia (Malvasia in Greek), a region located in the south of Greece.
It is necessary to go back to the 5 th century BCE when the Phocaeians founded Emporion (known now as Ampurias); and Rhode (known now as Rosas) were the only Greek cities in Spain.This establishment of new cities encouraged trade between both Mediterranean shores.During the 5 th and 4 th centuries BCE, these cities developed a flourishing economy that attracted Punic and Greek Mediterranean merchants.Emporion, which means "market," became the political, economic, and financial hub of Greek commerce on the Iberian Peninsula.It is possible that the Greeks extended their commercial networks and influence from Emporion to the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, reaching Tartessos and into Andalusia.Thus, the first hypothesis is that Greek grape cultivars were brought to Spain during that time, although there is no written evidence.
The quality of wine from Malvasia cultivars was well known in ancient times even though the first reference of wine from Monemvassia dates from 1214.As early as 1278, the Venetians became interested in exporting "vinum de Malvasia," and they began to grow vines in Creta (Candia), which was ruled by the city-state of Venice from 1204 to 1669.The consumption and export of wine from both zones to Eastern Europe increased so much that the planting of this cultivar was extended to other Aegean Sea zones, including Chio Island (Galet, 2000).The control of the trade by merchants from Italy, Catalonia, and Provence along the Asiatic and African Mediterranean coasts during the 12 th and 13 th centuries contributed to the expansion of grape cultivars from the eastern Mediterranean (Greece, Chio Island, Creta) to Italy and Spain.This trade could have been a second way of spreading Malvasia to the Iberian Peninsula.
The introduction of Malvasia to the Iberian Peninsula may also have its roots in religion, rather than commerce.Zerolo et al. (1897) wrote about Malvasia: From Malvasia (Monemvasia), city of Morea, near Argos; a type of very sweet and fragrant grape produced by a variety taken from Chio Island by the Catalonians during the times of the crusades.The variety is grown in different zones of Spain, especially in Villanueva de Sitges.
However, the oldest reference to the Malvasia wine from Sitges was written by Favá (2001).Therein, a reference to Gual Camarena (1976) is made that tells of a Greek wine or Malvasia entering Alcira in 1318.Furthermore, a new press to make Greek wine was also described in Sitges in the middle of the 15 th century.There is also evidence that Malvasia grapes had been grown in Sitges since the 18 th century (Comenge, 1942).
Malvasia could have arrived at the Canary Islands from the nearby Island of Madeira; the first colonists from the Iberian Peninsula had only religious interests (Macías, 2002).Pereira (1989) stated that the introduction of Malvasia in Madeira is shown in the stories of the Venetian Cadamosto in 1455, specifying that he was ordered to take vines from Candia, which was under the protection of Enrique the navigator.At the end of the 15 th century, the colonisation of Madeira was finished, and the Canary Islands offered better growing conditions for the colonists' vineyards (Macías, 2002).Many people from Madeira bought land in the Tenerife, La Palma, and Gran Canaria islands for growing their grape cultivars.
According to the 2007 Spanish Inventory, 6269 ha of 'Malvasía' are currently grown in Spain (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino, 2008), and their distributions by region are as follows: Castile and León 2271 ha, Canary Islands 1970 ha, Comunidad Valenciana 1312 ha, Castile-La Mancha 396 ha, Aragón 186 ha, La Rioja 41 ha, and Catalonia 23 ha.A decrease in 'Malvasía' cultivation has occurred since 1979, when 18,779 ha were grown in Spain.
The aim of this work is to identify the grape cultivars included in the Spanish Denominations of Origin (DO) that contains the local name 'Malvasía' by means of their comparison with the cultivars grown in Spain and belonging to the grapevine collection of El Encín (Madrid).Denominations of Origin are part of a Protected Geographical Status system in the European Union guarding the integrity of European wines by carefully legislating the labeling.So different cultivar names should be used in the labeling if it is proved that they are really different cultivars.

Material and methods
Studies were carried out on the wine cultivars listed in Table 1.All of the cultivars studied are catalogued as 'Malvasía', or include the term in their names, in differ-ent Spanish DO and were obtained from two sources: the collection of grape cultivars at El Encín, which is held by IMIDRA at Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Spain), and material collected in situ by the authors (advised by local technicians) from registered DO plantations.
One variety per DO was sampled with the exception of Cataluña (called 'Malvasía' or 'Subirant Parent' and 'Malvasía de Sitges' or 'Malvasía Grossa').It was not possible to collect Malvasia material from DO Jumilla.
The identification and comparison analyses were carried out using morphological, biochemical, and molecular methods.The morphological characterization was done using 39 descriptors taken from the OIV Descriptor List for Grapevine Varieties and Vitis Species (Dettweiler-Münch, 1999) (Table 2).The majority of the descriptors refer to organ morphology, but some morphometrical and phenological measurements, such as The DNA analysis of grape leaves was carried out as described by Ibáñez et al. (2003).Thirteen different microsatellites were amplified using PCR: VVS2, the length of the bunch, berry weight, or the time of bud burst, were also described.
Biochemical characterization was done according to the method recommended by Rodriguez-Torres (2001).The isozymes extracted from the wood were applied to polyacrylamide gels, followed by electrophoresis.The gels were dyed in order to reveal the following isoenzy-

Results and discussion
The ampelographic results clearly pointed out that the 31 samples of Malvasia studied correspond to eight different cultivars, which are identified as A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H in Table 2.The only morphological difference between patterns B and C was the skin colour of the berry (descriptor 225), which was green-yellow (note 1) in pattern B and rose (note 2) in pattern C.This 'Malvasia' grape cultivars in Spain 567 difference may be associated with a retrotransposon in the VvmybA1 gene promoter (Lijavetzky et al., 2006), particularly because both cultivars are grown mixed in old traditional vineyards.Microsatellite analysis (Table 3) showed only seven different genotypes because the colour mutation was not detected by the molecular technique.The isoenzymatic results also show seven patterns that match the molecular data (Figure 1).
Table 4 shows the morphology, isoenzyme, and microsatellite patterns corresponding to the cultivars studied.From these results, it can be stated that eight different cultivars are grown in Spain under the local name of 'Malvasía'.All samples matched with the following cultivars existing in the collection at El Encín that are also included in the Spanish Registry of Commercial Grape Varieties with different names and synonyms (BOE, 2002): 2. and 3. 'Malvasía de Sitges' and 'Malvasía Rosada' 'Malvasía Rosada' is, in all probability, a colour mutation of 'Malvasía de Sitges' and, thus, also corresponds to an authentic Malvasia (aromatic grapes with the special Muscat flavour, slightly bitter).
'Malvasía de Sitges' is very different from the other cultivars studied here, but it was found to be very similar to 'Malvasia delle Lipari', 'Malvasia di Sardegna', 'Greco di Gerace' (Italy), 'Malvasia dubrovacka' (Croatia), and 'Malvasía de Banyalbufar' (Mallorca, Spain), as concluded by Crespan et al. (2006).This cultivar is also like 'Malvasia Candida' grown in Madeira (Rodríguez-Torres et al., 2006).This cultivar has shoots that are semi-drooping, the mature leaves are small with marked lobes, the bunch is also small and dense, and the berries have a nice flavour.Thus, it corresponds to an authentic Malvasia and may be the most common cultivar described by ampelographers using the name 'Malvasía'.Herrera (1513) wrote about this Malvasia as being dense and having no large bunches, spherical berries, and it requires sandy and not humid soils because the berries are sensitive to diseases.Later, in 1885, Abela y Sáinz de Andino described a Malvasia that could be 'Malvasía de Sitges': very sweet, with short, erect, white-reddish, and hard wood; large to medium sized and lobed leaves with palm shaped, middle sized, spherical, and white berries with a sweet flavour.
In the province of León, García de los Salmones (1914) described this cultivar in the following manner: It seems to me to be a true 'Chasselas' with wings in the clusters, spherical and golden berries with thin skin ('Chasselas Doré'), with low resistance to diseases and low yields.There is early defoliation, and green leaves on both sides.It has thin woody shoots with long internodes, round and cottoned buds.
This cultivar is neither sweet nor aromatic and with no special flavour, so it does not seem to be the ancient 'Malvasía' cited by Herrera (1513) and Abela y Sáinz de Andino (1885).
Some old references confirm these results.For example, Marcilla (1954) wrote the following about this cultivar: 'Malvasía de Rioja' is a different cultivar from other Malvasia grown in other Spanish regions.García de los Salmones (1914) wrote: 'Malvasía de Rioja' is not similar to other ones from Zamora or Madrid.Clemente (1807) described the cultivar as a vine with white wood, middle and yellow leaves, white and gold grapes with slightly darker spots.The first description of 'Alarije' is attributed to Herrera (1513): 'Alarije' is a cultivar with tall vines, the berries are eaten by the bees, and the wine from this cultivar is not very good.This description confirms that 'Chasselas' is not the same cultivar as that of the ancient Malvasia.
These berries lack any particular flavour, so they are not aromatic like Malvasia is considered to be.Herrera (1513) wrote about this cultivar stating: It is a kind of grape similar to 'Albillas', but it requires warmer and sandier soil because they are more sensitive to diseases with a thinner skin than 'Albillas'.The wine from this cultivar is flavoured and clear, and it is long conserved.
García de los Salmones (1914) described this accession at length, and it could be this synonym: We have written about 'Malvasía Blanca' relating it with 'Moza Fresca', 'Dona Blanca', or 'Uva de Valencia' and 'Valdeorrana'. Thus, for more than a century, they have been considered synonymous.

Conclusions
The name Malvasia corresponds to aromatic grape cultivars with a slightly bitter, Muscat-like aroma, but many cultivars lacking this characteristic have claimed the name.This study concludes that, of all the Malvasias included in Spanish Denominations of Origin, there are only eight different cultivars: 'Alarije', 'Malvasía de Sitges', 'Malvasía Rosada', 'Chasselas', 'Doña Blanca', 'Malvasía de Lanzarote', 'Macabeo', and 'Planta Nova'; of which, only three can be considered true Malvasia: 'Malvasía de Sitges', 'Malvasía de Lanzarote' and 'Malvasía Rosada'.Eleven of the 19 DOs include at least one of the true Malvasia, and all but one (Cataluña) are located in the Canary Islands.
several Canary DO with the name of 'Malvasía' in Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, and Valle de Güímar, and with other names in La Palma ('Malvasía Portuguesa' and/or 'Sebastián García') and Tacoronte-Acentejo ('Málaga').Another synonym found in the grapevine collection of El Encín is 'Perejil' (from Lanzarote Island).
This cultivar has small leaves with five lobes, and bunches that are small but not dense.In addition, the grape has the characteristic flavour of Malvasia, so it is another authentic Malvasia and not a misnamed cultivar.José Esteve Martí (Martínez, 1998) cited 'Malvasía Canaria' as a variety with white or light golden berries and as being completely different from 'Malvasía de Sitges'.
This cultivar is more resistant to infections by viruses, pests, and diseases than 'Malvasía de Sitges'.Furthermore, the microsatellite results of the present study agree with Zerolo et al. (2006), who suggested that 'Malvasía de Lanzarote' could be the progeny of a cross between two cultivars cultivated in the Canary Islands: 'Malvasía de Sitges' (also known as cv.'Malvasía de la Palma') and 'Marmajuelo'.For this reason, 'Malvasía de Sitges' is considered to be the oldest Malvasia on the Canary Islands, and it is cultivated mainly in areas dedicated to export.

'Macabeo' (Viura)
This cultivar is found under the name of 'Malvasía' in DO Valencia, and it is not known for having much flavour.Castellet (1886) describes 'Macabeo': Its bunches have high levels of sugar and the wines obtained from it are fine and golden yellow in colour.Although the vines show a medium fertility, farmers do not spread the cultivar because they prefer to continue growing cultivars from their ancestors.

'Planta Nova' ('Tardana', 'Tortozón')
This is the cultivar listed in the DO Yecla under the name 'Malvasía'.Other synonyms found in the grapevine collection at El Encín are 'Tardana ' and 'Tortozón' (from Valencia).The wines from this cultivar are not aromatic.Valcárcel (1791) wrote about 'Planta Tardana': It produces berries that are round with a hard skin.They are not good for making wines because the ripening time is very late.Chirivella et al. (1995) describe 'Planta Nova': This variety has semi-dropping shoots, brownish woody shoots, white or lightly rose buds, medium-large and wedge-shaped leaves with five lobes, and an absence of prostrated hairs on both sides of the blade; the bunches

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Isoenzymatic patterns found in the studied cultivars.

Table 2 .
Patterns in the cultivars studied according to the morphological results

Table 4 .
Lanzarote'This cultivar is not included in the Spanish Registry of Commercial Varieties.However, we have found it in Identification of the different 'Malvasia' studied, classified according to the results of the morphology, DNA and isoenzimatic analysis and their comparison with true-to-type cultivars from the collection at El Encín are large but dense, the berries are spherical, and the ripening time very late.These descriptions suggest that this cultivar is not an authentic Malvasia.