In Italië is over een aantal jaar misschien échte tempelierswijn te drinken. Een team van onderzoekers is bezig wijn te recreëren die rond 1250 door de Tempeliers in Bologna gemaakt werd. Aan de hand van bij een opgraving gevonden stuifmeel wordt DNA-onderzoek gedaan, waarna de onderzoekers hopen het toen gebruikte druivenras te kunnen bepalen. Op zaterdag 25 november a.s. vindt in Bologna een studiedag plaats waarop de resultaten van het onderzoek gepubliceerd zullen worden. Het persbericht dat ik ontving is hieronder ongewijzigd weergegeven.
Templar wine. From pollen grain to vine and wine
The goal a team of researchers is pursuing would be the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Led by Giampiero Bagni, they aim to reconstitute the grapevine the Templars grew and to make the wine they drank from its grapes. Site excavations of the mid-thirteenth Century Templar Commandry in Bologna, Italy, have yielded pollen grains that should provide the DNA for identifying and reconstructing one of the vines they cultivated. Part of Bagni’s PhD. Project ‘Templars in Bologna’ at Nottingham Trent University, having Dr. Nicholas Morton as DoS, the endeavor has attracted the interest and support of molecular biologists and Templar scholars from as far away as Israel with Prof. Adrian Boas.
Bagni uncovered archival sources indicating that the building in central Bologna called the Knights’ Hall was part of the 13th-century Templar Commandry. Evidence his team of archeologists and biologists secured from archeological core samplings and scrapings that were examined by dendrochronology and palynology confirm the documentary record. DNA from the pollen grains identified as grapevine will soon be extracted and sequenced to determine the cultivar. If all goes well, Bagni and his researchers will use this material in a first-of-a-kind attempt to reconstitute the vine itself and make wine from the grapes it grows. These and other aspects of the ‘Templars’ Wine’ will be presented at a conference in Bologna on 25 November. Bagni has also been invited to give a more detailed, scholarly presentation of his research to date at the conference commemorating the 800th Anniversary of Atlit Castle from 31 January-2 February 2018 in Haifa (Israel).
Geïnteresseerden kunnen onderzoeker Giampiero Bagni volgen op Academia.edu.