Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
smaller bunches. However, Elisabetta Foradori,
the best producer of Teroldego wines, detests
clones and points out she has been working for
more than twenty-five years with massal
selections.
The variety has been planted all over Italy,
but the wine is mainly limited to Trentino, and
monovarietal wines are made only there.
There's quite a bit of Teroldego in Tuscany and
even in Sicily, but mainly used only for blends
or on an experimental basis. For example, in
Tuscany, Poggio al Cassone has bottled a Terol-
dego wine under the name La Cattura, and
many other estates, including Suvereto's famed
Tua Rita, have given it a try, if only in experi-
mental batches. Teroldego has also been
planted outside Italy: California, Brazil, and
Australia have all given it a try. In Australia,
areas as diverse as Margaret River, McLaren
Vale, Alpine Valleys, and Langhorne Creek
have gotten involved, while in the United States
it grows in areas like the Central Valley and
Sierra foothills.
dego makes possibly Italy's best
novello
(or
nou-
veau
) wines, in which soft tannins and bright
fruity aromas are everything. Aroma and fl avor
profi les resting on ripe red cherry, quinine,
ink, tar, and fresh herbs are typical of Teroldego
wines, which often maintain a wild, slightly
vegetal connotation (downright weedy if the
grapes are not perfectly ripe), perhaps a vestige
of the variety's descent from a wild grapevine
species. Despite Teroldego's noble family tree,
only recently has Teroldego been used to make
consistently truly important, ageworthy wines.
For the longest time the wine was sold off in
bulk and used all over Italy to pump up the
color and perfume of more anemic wines. Over
the last thirty years however, Teroldego produc-
tion has improved immeasurably and very fi ne
wines are here to stay.
In Australia, Blue Poles Vineyard, Hand
Crafted by Geoff Hardy, Michelini, and Zonte's
Footstep are the names to look for, while in
California, Montoliva, Heringer Estate, Podere
dell'Olivos, Terzetto, and Wolff Vineyards have
been successful.
Which Wines to Choose and Why
The recognized, historic
grand cru
for Terol-
dego is the Campo Rotaliano, a sandy-gravelly
plain born of the alluvial deposits of the Noce
Stream and Adige River, found between San
Michele all'Adige, Mezzocorona, and Mez-
zolombardo at about 230 meters above sea level.
Today, this is still the wine's most important
production area. Actually, the Campo Rotaliano
is one of the very few documented
grand crus
related to a specifi c grape variety in all of Italy
(for example, Cannubi is a
grand cru
for Barolo,
but there are surprisingly few such variety-
specifi c site pairs with historical signifi cance).
The wine is always darkly colored because of its
total anthocyanin concentration (one of the
highest of any Italian wine) and the prevalence
of malvin, petunin, and delphin in its anthocy-
anin profi le (roughly 65 percent of the total
anthocyanin content), while the more easily
oxidized cyanin and peonin are present only in
small amounts. The wines are always very
fruity and softly tannic, so much so that Terol-
wines to try:
Elisabetta Foradori*** (Granato,
huge and ageworthy; Vigneto Sgarzon, aged in
terra-cotta amphoras, characterized by
extremely high acidity), Zeni**, and Barone di
Cles*.
Terrano
where it's found:
FVG.
national registry
code number:
233.
color:
red.
Terrano may well be the ancient variety
known as Pucinum described by Pliny the
Elder, but such assertions are very hard to prove
(and some experts disagree, believing instead
that Pucinum wine was made with a white vari-
ety similar to Glera). Though Terrano is related
to Refosco del Peduncolo Rosso and has long
been referred to as Refosco del Carso or Refosco
d'Istria, recent studies have determined the
variety to be distinct. In a sign of just how com-
plicated it is to correctly classify members of
the
Refosco
group, differences between Terrano
