Robola is a white

Greek wine Greece is one of the oldest wine- producing regions in the world and among the first wine-producing territories in Europe. The earliest evidence of Greek wine has been dated to 6,500 years ago where wine was produced on a household or communal ...

grape variety This list of grape varieties includes cultivated grapes, whether used for wine, or eating as a table grape, fresh or dried (raisin, Zante currant, currant, sultana (grape), sultana). For a complete list of all grape species, including those unimp ...

that is grown primarily on the Ionian island of

Cephalonia Kefalonia or Cephalonia (), formerly also known as Kefallinia or Kephallonia (), is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece and the 6th-largest island in Greece after Crete, Euboea, Lesbos, Rhodes and Chios. It is also a separate regio ...

. Historically the vine was thought to be the same variety as the Friuli wine grape Ribolla and was thought to have been brought to northeast Italy by Venetian merchants trading with Cephalonia in the 13th century.J. Robinson ''Jancis Robinson's Guide to Wine Grapes'' pg 158 Oxford University Press 1996 However,

DNA profiling DNA profiling (also called DNA fingerprinting and genetic fingerprinting) is the process of determining an individual's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) characteristics. DNA analysis intended to identify a species, rather than an individual, is cal ...

in the 21st century has cast doubt on that theory and today Robola is classified by the

Vitis International Variety Catalogue The Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) is a database of various species and varieties/cultivars of grapevine, the genus ''Vitis''. VIVC is administered by the Geilweilerhof Institute for Grape Breeding (''Institut für Rebenzüchtung G ...

(VIVC) as a separate variety.

(VIVC)
Robola
' Accessed: 2018-12-04

Viticulture and wine styles

On Cephalonia, Robola vines are often ungrafted in the

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

soils of the island.Oz Clarke ''Encyclopedia of Grapes'' pg 202 Harcourt Books 2001 The vine is early ripening and can produce high acid wines with significant phenolic levels. Wines made from this grape tend to be dry, medium bodied with a distinct

lemon The lemon (''Citrus'' × ''limon'') is a species of small evergreen tree in the ''Citrus'' genus of the flowering plant family Rutaceae. A true lemon is a hybrid of the citron and the bitter orange. Its origins are uncertain, but some ...

note. According to wine expert Oz Clarke, Robola wines can have

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

y character as well.

Synonyms

Over the years Robola has been known under a variety of synonyms including Asporombola, Asprorobola, Asprorompola, Robbola, Robola Aspri, Robola Kerini, Rombola, Rombola Aspri and Rompola.

References

{{reflist White wine grape varieties Grape varieties of Greece Cephalonia