Venice, Italy: The Sustainable Producers Discovering Unique Flavors In The Venetian Lagoon

Beyond the gothic extravagances of Venice lies the northern lagoon, a wild area of salt marshes, narrow reedy canals and grassy sandbanks. Along with the vegetation growing naturally, local farmers have cultivated the nutritious soil for centuries to produce vegetables and wine. Fighting for both sustainability and to keep mass tourism out of the lagoon, some residents are now rediscovering and nurturing the lagoon’s age-old offerings. 

On the island of Mazzorbo lies a vineyard, a rare sight in the lagoon. Owned by Venissa, a wine-producer, hotel and restaurant, the vineyard grows the prized Dorona grape. “Dorona grapes had a great and powerful story for the Venetian people. This variety was the golden grape of Venice, it was on the banquet tables of the doges,” explains Matteo Turato, Venissa’s wine expert. 

Dorona grapes were used to produce wine in the lagoon until a flood in 1966 destroyed almost all the vines. Gianluca Bisol, an established prosecco producer in Valdobbiadene and founder of Venissa, stumbled across one of the remaining Dorona vines on the island of Torcello. This sparked an impassioned project to seek out and coax back to life all the fragments of Dorona vines in the lagoon that had survived the flood. “We now have one hectare of vineyard and produce around 3,500 bottles of Dorona wine a year,” says Turato. 

The Dorona grape has had to adapt to a particularly hostile environment. “The soil has a very high sodium content compared to the mainland, which is not advisable for cultivation. We dug the land in the vineyard and in some areas in under two meters we found saltwater,” Turato says. “The lagoon is also a very humid environment. This makes difficult conditions for fruit but, unlike other vines, there are not rotten grapes here thanks to the way they have adapted to the habitat.” 

Venissa uses only biological treatments on the vines and ensures the biodiversity of the area is preserved. “We cut the grass only in certain sections. This island and vineyard is an ecosystem, when you cut the grass you kill elements. If you kill one species, there’s the possibility that another species dominates and unbalances the biodiversity,” explains Turato. 

To learn about traditional production methods, Bisol and his team consulted a family living on the nearby island of Sant’Erasmo who produced Dorona wine before the 1966 flood. “You have to think that this wine has been on the island of centuries but the tradition has disappeared. We didn’t want to produce the wine without the tradition,” says Turato.

Particularly important in the Dorona wine-making process is the long maceration of the grape skins. “When you use the skins as well as the juice, you get a lot of substances like antioxidants and tannins,” explains Turato. Not only does this give the wine its characteristic golden color, but in the past it was a method of giving the wine enough structure to preserve it through the hot summers as underground cellars were impossible to build on the islands.  

“The result is a wine that transmits the unique lagoon terroir through its combination of sweet peach fruits and an unusual mineral sensation whose iodine note recalls the lagoon,” describes Turato.  

The resurrection of these vines has been more than a wine-making project for Venissa. “This is the grape of Venice, we are preserving part of the lagoon’s heritage,” says Turato. 

In Venissa’s Michelin starred restaurant, chefs Francesco Brutto and Chiara Pavan are making their own discoveries of the lagoon’s bounty. Brutto and Pavan’s menus revolve around the plants and aromatic herbs grown in the restaurant’s garden and found wild in the lagoon. They pair lavender with squid, tarragon with turbot and verbena with cod mousse. “We only use super local ingredients, from the lagoon or immediately outside in the open sea,” explains Pavan. “We are always looking for new things to experiment with, wild herbs or plants, and trying to understand if we can use them.” 

The islands of the northern lagoon are Venice’s “countryside”, but none more so than Sant’Erasmo, known as the “vegetable garden” of Venice. Roughly the size of the historic city, Sant’Erasmo has acres of fields and vegetation rather than palazzi and squares. Construction has been limited on the island thanks to the quality of the land for cultivation. “Once you eat a pepper or fruit from Sant’Erasmo you can’t go back,” says Liliana Lopez, who has joined her husband’s family in producing honey.

Mara La Rosa and her son Marco Vianello, Lopez’s husband, have an apiary, Miele del Doge, on Sant’Erasmo where they produce biological honey. “We don’t use any chemical products and we don’t stress the bees, they are never hungry and don’t experience violence,” explains Lopez. 

Their “barena” honey is unique to the lagoon. It is made when the bees feed on the flowers that grow on the sandbanks, or barene, that are characteristic of the lagoon. These sandbanks are suffering worrying levels of erosion thanks to excessively powerful boats coming in large numbers creating waves that damage the fragile sand structures. “The honey production is helping to preserve the sandbank ecosystem as the bees pollinate the flowers that cover the sand,” explains Vianello, “it’s work that is all done by the bees though, not us!”

Back at the house, La Rosa prepares tastings where their various kinds of honey are paired with other foods exclusively from the island of Sant’Erasmo (excepting one cheese from nearby Jesolo). “With all the products, the fruit and vegetables of the island, I prepare pairings based on what is seasonal,” explains La Rosa. On the menu that day is a quiche with a courgette pesto and lemongrette with millefiori honey, and figs and prosciutto with barena honey.     

Nearby on Sant’Erasmo is the only other wine producer of the lagoon. Michel Thoulouze, originally from France, uses Malvasia, Vermentino and Fiano del Avellino grapes to create his Orto di Venezia wine. “We don’t use any machines here, everything is done by hand,” says manager Pamela. ”It’s a very natural wine, no chemicals and no irrigation, it’s very hard work on the land.”

Like Venissa’s Dorona wine, Orto di Venezia has a deep connection to the lagoon. “Sant’Erasmo is the unique island of agriculture. Thoulouze decided to start his vineyard here because in the 7th century this was an island of wine production,” explains Pamela. As with Dorona, Orta di Venezia also has a curious salty undertone to affirm its identity as a lagoon-made product.

Nurturing and preserving the lagoon environment provides residents with unique, prized products, but it is also a necessity. The lagoon habitat protects, supplies, and cleans the islands within it. The sandbanks that provide herbs for Venissa and flowers for the bees also act as buffers protecting the islands from waves during high tide. The fish that live in the lagoon waters provide a livelihood for residents while the water itself means Venice and the other islands don’t need a sewage network. “It’s important in the lagoon to continue traditions and keep the environment clean and tranquil, which then allows our activities to take place,” says Lopez.