It is no secret that I am a big fan of Italian wine and wine made by women.
They have not arrived yet but here is a recent find I am very excited about.
Teroldego, a grape that is only grown in Trentino Alto Adige, becomes a unique wine you must try.
Tasting notes to follow.
Available Here
Elisabetta Foradori
http://www.elisabettaforadori.com/
It was Edmund Mach, the first director of the Istituto Agrario Provinciale founded in 1874 in San Michele all’Adige, who campaigned for local quality wines to be upgraded over mass-produced wines.
In 1985, more than a hundred years later, Elisabetta Foradori – supported by her mother Gabriella – started her research on this grape variety. At the time it seemed as if it has lost all its qualitative potential as well as its genetic diversity.
But the young winemaker, who had unexpectedly stepped into the shoes of her father Roberto when he died prematurely, soon recognized the boundless potential of this ancient variety and set out to overcome any obstacle to bring its qualities back to light. An essential element of her effort was to recover the variety’s biodiversity through simple mass selection to preserve and cherish the diversity existing at the time. This effort was followed by the continuous replanting of the vineyards with the plants she selected thus enabling her to assess their stability and value. Finally, she scoured the registers of public properties, looked up the records of church estates, perused tax records, and soaked up the knowledge of centuries to reconstruct the variety’s development in the course of history.
After almost twenty years of painstaking work, the Teroldego has regained a qualitatively well-defined place among Italy’s indigenous grape varieties. The vineyards around the Foradori estate is for wine lovers a sort of viticultural Garden of Eden where the huge mosaic of the variety’s diversity is reconstructed.
In the meantime, as the vines grow older, the potential of this grape variety manifests itself increasingly fully.
Good wine is the fruit of knowledge and patience.
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
This exhortation from the epistle of an anonymous writer to the Hebrews is one which the people of Mezzolombardo have traditionally taken to heart. They have gladly opened the doors to their wine cellars – not just out of piety, but out of a shrewd business sense.
That’s why there are two sides to their villas, like the sides of a coin: one with an urban character, the other with an agricultural function.
The latter abuts the vineyards, the cellars and the barns. And so it is also at the Foradori estate. Its villa, built in 1901 with a filigree façade, is situated in a square near a Franciscan monastery founded in 1664, and was bought by Vittorio Foradori in 1935. Today, employees and visitors gain access to the wine presses on the ground floor via the courtyard. It is also the way to the vast, old, vaulted cellars.
In 1999 a new wine cellar was excavated under the old barn and is used solely to store the barriques for the ageing of the Teroldego. These small barrels are piled up in pyramids; the lighting is almost sacred and the setting artistic. Yet this is a functional space, with an ideal climate thanks to the loam plaster on its walls.
The Teroldego is kept in barriques resting on gravel from the River Noce. The entrance has large, smooth stones piled up against the wall, beautiful large pebbles that magically draw the visitor down the steep steps. Balancing warmth and coolness, the familiar and the surprising, coarseness and refinement, nature and culture to create a harmonious whole are its unique features.
In fewer than 20 years, Foradori has become the reference point for Teroldego. When, in 1985, Elisabetta Foradori took over the family’s Trentino estate, the local grape was given scant attention. Elisabetta is now one of the most respected winemakers in all of Italy, her reputation built solely on her rediscovery and development of Teroldego. Everything at the Estate, including the cellar, is immaculate and perfectly managed. The grapes are grown on the Foradori estate, plus some sites that Elisabetta controls.
In July 2004, Edward Beltrami wrote in the International Wine Cellar: "One of the keys to Elisabetta Foradori's Teroldego-based wines is biodiversity. She cultivates a variety of clonal types within each vineyard site in the belief that the rich genetic patrimony enhances the wine's complexity. The owner of especially favored plots within the classic zone for Teroldego known as Campo Rotaliano at the northern edge of the Trentino in the Adige valley, she produces wines of remarkable power and grace in most years.
"Laboratory analysis of this grape shows it to be closely related to both Lagrein and Syrah but Elisabetta believes that even though Teroldego and Lagrein share a similar aromatic profile, the first of these grapes shows more finesse (one is more feminine and the other more masculine, as she puts it.).
"Only two red wines are produced at this property, both entirely from Teroldego. The flagship wine is called Granato, and there is also a second-tier wine, Foradori, from younger vines or from less privileged plots. A vintage 2003 barrel sample of Granato was superrich and lushly textured but not overripe, with a liqueur-like sweetness of fruit and compelling balance.
