European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 15, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                I to a l y Rye Tovino town s wine no longer taken for granted is  Crugers a j. King Cruger a visitor pauses beneath the Arches on a cobbled Street. Orvieto is a popular Day trip for romans who buy pottery like the mask above and local White wine. Particular time was a very old wine Community by the time Signorelli came Here to work. Burton Anderson a writer who lives in Tuscany said the etruscan made wine Here and it was probably White like almost All the wine made in the Region today. For most of its history including Signorelli s time there at the end of the 15th Century Orvieto was an a Boccato wine that is slightly Sweet soft and Golden in color. A Boccato Means  then came the 1950s and the beginning of a new worldwide Middle class interest in wines particularly White wines. For the next two decades Italy led the world in innovative White wine making. California was a Pioneer in devising ways to make Light Crisp White wines in relatively hot climates. But it was the italians who took the technology and so to speak ran with it. What was Tost in the process was character the wines often were Over processed making them clean Correct and Boring. Orvieto which was bypassed by Charles Viii on his Way to sack Rome did t escape this time its new dry White wines were As Bland As everyone else s. Soon a few producers set about once More to change Orvieto s image. One of the leading wine and image continued on Page 6 by Frank. The new York times i d always taken Orvieto for granted. Another pleasant inconsequential italian White wine. But there i was neck stretched gazing with Awe at the South Wall of the sistine Chapel in Rome which depicts the life of Moses in a series of frescoes or panels the last of which the testament and death of Moses was painted by the umbrian master Luca Signorelli. Whether Signorelli had trouble getting Pope Sixtus in to pay him is not known. But 16 years later when he came to do his masterpieces the frescoes in the Cathedral at Orvieto he asked for part of his payment in wine. Would a great Renaissance master permit himself to be paid off in a wimpy wine it seemed Worth the 60-mile trip up the Autostrada from Rome to find out. Orvieto is a popular Day trip for romans who trudge through the Hill town s Stone streets buy pottery of. Dubious provenance lunch in the Vine covered Trattoria restaurants and lug Home a few bottles of the local White wine which May or May not resemble what Signorelli took in kind 494 years ago. Orvieto or whatever it happened to be called at any december 15, 1994 stripes Magazine