Region: Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy

Varietal: 100% Teroldego

Tasting notes: One might liken their first sip of Teroldego to an elegant mash up of Cru Beaujolais and Rhone Syrah. Foradori's well known mastery of this variety makes even this 'entry level' red an entirely unique experience. Ferrousness, eucalyptus and earthy heather hover above spiced pomegranate juice and tree sap.

Producer: Elisabetta Foradori is the top producer of Teroldego, an ancient, native grape variety that is related to Syrah and Pinot Noir. In 1985, at the age of 19, Elisabetta took over her father’s estate in the Campo Rotaliano zone of Trentino in the foothills of the Dolomites. At the time, Teroldego was an also-ran variety whose high-yielding grapes were either sold in bulk to co-ops or were being uprooted in favor of more saleable varieties such as Pinot Grigio and Merlot. Elisabetta, then a young-woman just out of enology school, doubled down on the grape. Utilizing seleccion massalle from her Pergola trained vines, she re-planted her vineyards using guyot training and high-density plantings, pruned her vines diligently, and introduced barriques to the aging regimen. By 1999, she was being referred to as the “undisputed top producer of Teroldego and had received numerous accolades.

Vineyard and Winemaking: This is the core red of Foradori: the first and only one to be bottled back in 1960 and still the largest production, from 10 hectares of vines planted from 1956 to 2005 on the flat, sunny, well-drained Camp Rotaliano plateau on sandy, Dolomitic limestone soils. Some of the vines are still pergola-trained, while newer plantings are on wires in the Guyot style; the farming is certified-biodynamic (as for all of their vineyards). The fruit is harvested by hand, destemmed with some whole clusters left intact (varies by vintage) and fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts and with no sulfur (until racking and bottling). Aging takes place in cement tanks and used foudres of 20-40 hectoliters for about a year.