Editing Barbera (section)

==History==
[[File:Casal-1745.jpg|left|thumb|200px|An 18th-century engraving of the city of Casal Monferrato in whose cathedral archive the earliest known planting of Barbera is documented]]
Barbera is believed to have originated in the hills of [[Monferrato]] in central [[Piedmont (Italy)|Piemonte]], Italy, where it has been known since the thirteenth century.<ref name="SLSA">{{cite web | last = Radden | first = Rosemary | title = Grapes and Wines of the World | publisher = The State Library of South Australia, GPO Box 419, Adelaide SA 5001 | url = http://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?area_id=15&nav_id=553 | access-date = 2007-04-18 }}</ref> Documents from the [[cathedral]] of [[Casale Monferrato]] between 1246 and 1277 detail leasing agreements of vineyard lands planted with ''"de bonis vitibus barbexinis"'' or Barbera, as it was known then. However, one [[ampelographer]], Pierre Viala, speculates that Barbera originated in the [[Lombardy (wine)|Lombardy]] region of [[Oltrepò Pavese]]. In the 19th and 20th centuries, waves of [[Italian immigrants]] brought Barbera to the Americas where the vine took root in [[California (wine)|California]] and [[Argentina (wine)|Argentina]] among other places.<ref name="Oxford pg 62-63"/> Recent [[DNA]] evidence suggest that Barbera may be related to the [[French (wine)|French]]-[[Spanish (wine)|Spanish]] vine [[Mourvedre]].<ref name="Clarke pg 41">Oz Clarke ''Encyclopedia of Grapes'' p. 41 Harcourt Books 2001 {{ISBN|0-15-100714-4}}</ref> In 1985, the Piedmont region was rocked by a scandal involving Barbera producers [[wine fraud|illegally]] adding [[methanol]] to their wines,<ref>F. Ziliani [http://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/?go=getArticle&dataId=29795 "Barbera Renaissance in Piemonte"] ''Wine Business Monthly'', December 1, 2003</ref> killing over 30 people and causing many more to lose their sight. The bad press and publicity saw a steady decline in Barbera sales and plantings, allowing the grape to be eclipsed by the Montepulciano grape as Italy's second most widely planted red grape variety in the late 1990s.<ref name="Oxford pg 62-63"/>