Vernaccia di Oristano

Vernaccia di Oristano is a white Italian wine grape variety grown on the island of Sardinia which makes a wide range of wine styles for the Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC) of Vernaccia di Oristano based in the province of Oristano. This include both dry and sweet wines as well as fortified "sherry-like" wines aged in a solera. The grape has a long history on the island of Sardinia with Sardinian claiming that consuming ample quantities of wine produced from the grape as being responsible for low instances of malaria on the island.

Despite the similarities in their names and synonyms, Vernaccia di Oristano is a distinct variety that is not related to the Tuscan wine grape Vernaccia used to make Vernaccia di San Gimignano. The grape also does not appear to be related to the red wine grapes Aleatico or Grenache which are known as Vernaccia in different parts of Italy.

According to legend, Vernaccia was introduced to the island of Sardinia by the Phoenicians sometime after the ancient Semitic civilization founded the port of Tharros in 800 BC. The first documented mentioning of Vernaccia di Oristano was from a legal document drafted in 1327 in the town of Iglesias in southwest Sardinian that specified that winemakers were limited to producing one barrel each of wine made from several different grape varieties, including Vernaccia, Greco, Brusco bianco and Vermiglio, but that each wine was to be kept separate.

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