Pinot Noir is one of the oldest known varieties of the species Vitis vinifera. Its presumed antecedent Vitis allobrogica was recorded in Burgundy by Roman historian Pliny as early as the first century BCE. The first mention of Pinot Nero in Italy appears in Edmund Mach's La Viticultura e i Vini del Tirolo Tedesco of 1894. Mach, celebrated nineteenth century Director of the Agrarian Institute of San Michele all'Adige, cites the presence of the variety in the Collio Goriziano, Oltrepò Pavese, the ...