Foradori Teroldego 2016

Description

We are excited to offer wines from the iconic Dolomiti producer Elisabetta Foradori  The winery founded in 1901 is located in the picture perfect Trentino town of Mezzolambardo with the first vintage produced in 1960 and Elisabetta making her first wine in 1984. She crafts beautifully elegant wines with clear territorial character.

Biodynamic conversion started in 2002 and Demeter certification in 2007. The winery focuses on the traditional Trentino varieties of Teroldego, Nosiola & Manzoni with the former making up the majority of the winery’s production. The grapes come from two distinct areas within Trentino, firstly, the Campo Rotaliano, a flood plain formed by the confluence of the Noce River into the Adige River surrounded by massive cliffs. The flooding has deposited huge quantities of limestone, granite, porphyry and fine sand, perfect for growing Teroldego. The second
area is the hills east of the town of Trento, located 25 kms south of Mezzolombardo. Here the elevated Fontanasanta (holy water) estate is planted to Nosiola and Incrocio Manzoni on the rich red clay and white limestone soils.

The winemaking philosophy is best summed up by Elisabetta: ‘We do not intervene in the winery; nothing is added, but we guide the wine while paying attention to its needs. Thus, the wine keeps an expressive spontaneity and bears the personality of its intense and live raw material. In this way,we seem to bring into the wineglass the fragrance of the flowers from the mountain pastures, the minerality of the surrounding cliffs, the transparency of the mountain skies, the character of the people that live in these alpine valleys. It is our duty to convey with each bottle the character of the land of Trentino.’  The wines are naturally fermented and aged in various vessels according to their needs. Stainless steel for freshness, cement for thermal inertia, Spanish clay Tinajas (amphora) for their energy and ability for the wine to reconnect with the earth. The wines are lightly sulphured after the first racking and at most the wine will contain between 30-50 mg/l of sulphur dioxide.

Excellent growing season in 2016 produced exceptional ripe and balanced fruit.  Italy’s Alto Adige region is well-known for having mild temperatures and exceptional soils due to the nearby Dolomites, thus producing exceptional wines. And 2016, in particular, proved to be a stellar year. “The 2016 vintage has produced age-worthy reds with noticeable firmness and textural weight,” says Monica Larner from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

94 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front “Foradori works mostly with teroldego (some 75% of the land under vine), the stellar red variety that thrives in the cool reaches of the Dolomites where the vineyards and winery are found. This wine is raised in concrete vats then used wooden foudres. A reliably engaging and interesting wine. I typically like Foradori’s white wines more than the reds, but this is a great release of the standard teroldego wine.

Wonderful expression here, succulent, dark fruited, imbued with spice and wild herb characters, good savoury element and general freshness. Winner. It’s a wine of presence and precision, density yet freshness, dark cherry, sarsaparilla, fennel, brambles all going on with a fine sheath of tannins holding the wine firm, then finishing chewy and pleasing bitter. Bravo.”

RRP $57     Last stocks of this fabulous vintage

(New vintage also available … click here)