Ancellotta

A dark-skinned red grape native to Reggio Emilia province, its name traced to the Lancellotti family of Modena, who spread its cultivation through the area in the 15th century. Thick, blue-black skin with a very high anthocyanin (pigment) concentration makes it prized above all as a blending grape for deepening color — historically the base of concentrated grape-must colorants known as "Rossissimo" — rather than for varietal wines on its own.

Long an Emilia-Romagna staple, it has since spread more widely into the Veneto, Tuscany, Friuli and lower Trentino, generally in a similar blending role. On its own it gives a bright ruby-red wine, softening toward orange-amber with age, soft and mellow on the palate with red-fruit character. In Veneto it is named as a varietal-specification grape in the Veneto Orientale IGT.