#Stands awakening full

Nicoletta, who looked after the garden, told me that indeed they were different – a native grape variety from the Venetian Lagoon.

'It was immediately clear to me that they were different from any vines I'd seen before. 'It was an accidental discovery, but when I saw those three dorona plants for the first time, a great emotion came over me,' said Bisol. In 2002, local winemaker Gianluca Bisol was exploring the island of Torcello when he noticed an unusual golden grape gleaming on a gnarled vine in a garden beside the Byzantine Church of Santa Maria Assunta. Venetian wine, along with the dorona grape itself, was a thing extinct, consigned to the history books. Then, most devastating of all, came a catastrophic high tide in 1966, which caused the worst flood in the history of Venice and drowned the few remaining vines. In the 1950s and '60s, tourism came to further displace agriculture as the predominant industry in the lagoon. The ease of importing wine from more reliable terroirs won out, and dorona wine was replaced on Venetian tables with those from elsewhere in Italy and beyond. 'The workforce was redirected from fieldwork to factory work – for example, in the glass furnaces of Murano.' 'The diseases that spread across Europe at the turn of the last century – phylloxera, powdery and downy mildew – took a huge toll on the overall production and on the economy of the islands that were devoted to winemaking, like Mazzorbo, Sant'Erasmo and Le Vignole,' said Necchio. The dorona's dominance was not to last, however. 'Archival research shows that the dorona was considered the doges' favourite variety because of its golden colour and the quality of the wine made from it – balanced and structured,' said Valeria Necchio, a Venice-based food writer. The golden wine it produced was prized above all others by wealthy Venetians in centuries past, including by the doges – Venice's powerful heads of state. Stressed vines produce the best wines, though, according to winemaking wisdom, and this was certainly seen to be the case for Venice's indigenous dorona grape. That's despite the unique challenges associated with growing vines on islands prone to flooding, where saltwater lies just a few feet beneath the shallow earth. Venetian winemaking has a long history that has been documented as far back as 2,500 years ago until 1100, there was even a vineyard in the Piazza San Marco. The wine was the colour of honey, rich and robust – tangibly imbued, even to my dilettante palate, with the salty taste of the lagoon. In the name of research, amid the mighty oak barrels of the monastery's cellar, I tried a couple of ombras myself. Laguna nel Bicchiere is not a commercial operation – they can't sell the wine, only give it away – and the vineyards are staffed by enthusiastic volunteers, motivated purely by the revival and preservation of Venetian winemaking.

In addition to the vineyard we were standing in on San Michele, Laguna nel Bicchiere currently preserves three others – with origins going back centuries – on the Venetian islands of Giudecca, Sant'Elena and Vignole. We go there and offer people an ombra of wine, with the idea being to let the city know about Venice's historical vineyards.' 'Each campo has its own different celebration, and on the solstice in June there's three days of festivities at the Bragora. 'In late spring and early summer there are quite a few festivals,' explained Colleen McCann, a long-time member of the organisation, as she showed me around San Michele's vineyard. Preparations were afoot on the Isola di San Michele for Venice's festival season, and Laguna nel Bicchiere, a non-profit organisation devoted to the propagation of Venetian viticulture, would be providing the wine.

#Stands awakening full

A man bustled past with a wheelbarrow full of brambles two women sat on the ground, tending to flowering grapevines about to burst into fruit. In the garden of an abandoned monastery, on an ancient cemetery island in the Venetian Lagoon, I found myself surrounded by life.