Marvels on the Margins Part II: Trentino-Alto Adige
This is Part II of a series called "Marvels on the Margins" which explores the over-looked regions of Italy. You can read an introduction to the series here, and read Part I, on Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, here.
Trentino-Adige: A Marvel for Adventurers
Whenever I start to plan my next vacation in Italy, my mind always wanders over to Trentino-Alto Adige. No, it’s not the most quintessentially Italian of regions – in fact, German is the primary language in significant parts of it. And the cuisine, while good, does not match the heights of Emilia Romagna or Campania. But it’s a region that offers plenty of what I crave most from a vacation: adventure.
The same can be said about the region’s wines. The other Marvels that I’m covering in this blog series can be tidily packaged. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, for example, is a single grape variety (for the most part) and a single DOC. It offers exploration, but of the sort that is rather subtle, such as between vineyards of different altitudes and slightly different proportions of sand. When I get to Mount Etna and Alto Piemonte, in future posts, you’ll see much the same thing.
But in Trentino-Alto Adige, the adventurous side of wine drinking comes to the forefront. Here you have a mini-universe of wine. 20 different grape varieties are planted in Alto Adige. More than 20 are permitted in Trentino. These grapes are planted at virtually every altitude and in a multitude of different soil types. You could spend the rest of your life exploring the wines of this region and never quite get to every corner.
So I'm taking a slightly different approach for this Marvel. Rather than try to cover everything, I’m going to focus on what I think are the truly great wines that the region has to offer. Read through the guide, if you like, or just click below to the section that interests you:
This leaves a lot out! I’m skipping over sparkling wines (this is home to the premium sparkler Ferrari), rosé wines, Schiava (a light and tasty red wine variety), and the grape variety that is the most widely planted in the region: Pinot Grigio. There is some good stuff here, though I don’t necessarily consider all of them to be at the level of “Marvels”.
But before we get to the specific categories, I'm going to first give you a brief overview of the region.
Trentino-Alto Adige: The Basics
This is a region of mountains where two of Europe’s great cultures, Latin and Germanic, collide. The mountains themselves are great for skiing and hiking but are too high for vines. Instead, all the viticultural action is in the valleys or the lower slopes.
Specifically, there are three main valleys, carved out by the rivers Adige and Isaarco. These valleys form a Y, with the intersection point being the city of Bolzano. Each valley has its own set of traditions and grape varieties. Here’s a rough overview:
We are roughly at the same latitude as Burgundy here, but, despite the mountains, Trentino-Alto Adige is a bit warmer – at least in the valleys where the grapes are grown. This is because of warm air currents being pushed up from Lake Garda, which sits at the bottom of the region, and because the mountains create a rain shadow effect, so there is lots of sunshine. Still, the mountains provide cool air that keeps the nights fresh and preserves acidity in the grape.
The soils are alluvial and rich in the minerals transported by the rivers down from the Alps. There are also glacial deposits left over from the ice age. This means soil complexity, and every vineyard site has its own, slightly different geologic story to tell.
Taken together, these conditions are very good for wine production. That’s why the Romans started making wine here thousands of years ago. And why, when Alto Adige was ruled by the Austro-Hungarian, it served as the wine store for the Empire.
The other point of historical interest is that this is an area of very small landholdings. Very few families grow enough grapes to produce their own wines. Thus, most wine is produced by coops. As we will see, some of them are excellent.
Indigenous Reds: Lagrein and Teroldego
Lagrein
Lagrein is the king red wine grape in and around Bolzano, where the grape is likely indigenous. The locals have known this for over a thousand years. We have written records of monks setting harvest dates for Lagrein back in 1097! In Burgundy, they famously banned Gamay from being grown because Pinot Noir was so clearly superior. Here in Alto Adige, the opposite logic applied: one Emperor tried to ban Lagrein because his troops would drink too much of it, insisting that they drink the lighter Schiava instead.
But Lagrein survived. It was close: by the 1970s, like so many other native Italian grapes – not to mention Italian dialects and numerous other cultural treasures from the country – it had all but disappeared. Champions of diversity have revived the grape and today it is the signature red grape of the Alto Adige and Trentino.
Lagrein produces a dark, strong red wine with a lick of spice and, like many things Italian, a hint of attractive bitterness. There are lighter versions that are fresh and fun – including delicious Rosato – and there are more serious Lagreins that are capable of aging for 10 years or perhaps longer.
Remember that this is a Marvel at the Margin. That means it’s a great deal! Some Lagreins are labeled Riservas and they are deep, serious, and soul-satisfying red wines. But they are never all that expensive. Top producers include Hofstatter -- who makes some delicious Lagrein in the $20 range -- and Nusserhof, whose bottlings are quite sought after and tend to cost a little more (but not that much more!).
Teroldego
Travel south from Bolzano, and the Lagrein soon gives way to its likely genetic parent, Teroldego. It does not have quite the noble history of Lagrein, but it has emerged in recent decades as the king red grape variety of Trentino. It is a king that is ruled, more than by any other grape, a queen: Elisabetta Foradori. Perhaps the most famous name in this entire guide, she has shown the world that Teroldego is a world class grape.
Teroldego shares with Lagrein its dark colors and its hint of spice. There is something purplish and velvety about the wine. Unlike Lagrein, it is soft – it does not finish with bitterness, and its tannins are round. It’s approachable younger, and possibly does not age as well, though we have yet to see how long Foradori’s top reds can age for.
Teroldego is best in a vineyard known as Campo Rotaliano, a 430 hectare gravelly plain at the north end of Trentino. The site is so associated with Teroldego that it gets its own DOC, Teroldego Rotaliano, the only DOC that is 100% dedicated to Teroldego. Go higher upslope from these plains – or wander north into Alto Adige – and the weather is not warm enough to ripen Teroldego, which can be unpleasantly vegetal when underripe.
Teroldego’s recent history is a bit like Lagrein’s. We nearly lost the grape in the sweep of homogenization that nearly overwhelmed Italy in the 20th century, but it was rescued by the 21st century’s newly found appreciation for diversity and localization. Today, it is very much a product of artisans – not just Foradori, but also Marion, Zeni, and others — who have rescued it from near-extinction and shown the world that it requires your attention.
Nosiola
Nosiola is Trentino’s white counterpart to Teroldego. It is, like Teroldego, an indigenous variety – perhaps the only white wine grape indigenous to Teroldego – that is not found anywhere in the world outside of Trentino. Like Teroldego, it faced extinction in the 20th century, only to be saved by artisans in the 21st.
But let me intervene with a quick personal opinion: of the many interesting wines that you find in this part of Italy, Nosiola may be the most interesting. There are plenty of other indigenous red wine grapes to be found across Italy producing world class wines. There just aren’t that many whites. And the white that Nosiola produces is very distinctive: a certain mineral quality, a certain oiliness, a hazel nuttiness, and an elegant peachiness that calls to mind the Mosel. It produces delicious wine, and I’ve had good luck drinking delicious bottles after several years of cellaring.
It may be that hazelnut quality – nocciola in Italian – that gives Nosiola its name. If it’s not the flavor, then it could be the unusual shade of brown that the grapes (but not the wines!) develop as they become mature.
Although I personally enjoy the dry white wines made from Nosiola, many people are more into the dessert wines, for Nosiola produces Trentino’s vin santo. The wine is aged in barrels for at least six years, and ranks among the most complex sweet wines in all of Italy.
Guess who is the top producer of Nosiola? That’s right: Elisabetta Foradori. However, her bottling is beyond the budget of many, and you can explore the grape with less expensive offerings from many other producers. Edmon Mach makes one that is very good and quite affordable. But do try and work your way up to Foradori’s one day, as it is a truly great Italian white wine with tremendous aging potential. (Note that it is not an easy wine to find, and as of this writing we are not able to acquire any of Foradori's Nosiola. Do check back frequently as we get it whenever we can!)
Germanic Whites, French Whites
In Northern Italy, you are not far from France, and you are partly within the German-speaking world. So no surprise, there is a long tradition of growing both French and Germanic grapes in the region. Many of them are excellent.
And not all of them are foreign! Remember that Alto Adige is, in part, Germanic. Gewurztraminer traces its origins to Tramin, a village in Alto Adige, which gives the grape variety the second half of its name. Kerner is a cross between Riesling and the indigenous grape Schiava.
These two grapes, along with several others, such as Riesling, Sylvaner, Gruner, and Muller Thurgau, are most prominent in the Valle Isarco. People speak German here, so you might also hear of it referred to by its German name, Eisacktal.
Remember the Y shape of Trentino Alto-Adige in the little info-map above? The Valle Isarco is the upper-right hand line in the Y. It’s the coolest wine-growing sub-region in Trentino Alto-Adige, with many vines planted quite high up. This, of course, is why it is dominated by Germanic varieties, many of which come from even more northerly latitudes and are naturally suited for colder weather.
I mostly love the Valle Isarco for its simple, fresh, racy wines that are very fairly priced. One of the largest producers in the area is an Abbey, the Abbazia di Novacella, which has been continuously making wine since 1142! You can’t go wrong working through their lineup of varietally labeled wines over the course of a few weeks, from Kerner to Riesling to Gruner and so on.
But I was recently pleased to discover wines of this ilk in a more serious guise. We recently featured a barrel-aged Kerner from Stasserhof in our newsletter that was just bonkers good. It’s a $25 wine that I would happily substitute for a $50 white Burgundy. It reminded me that there is still a ton of upside in this region as producers raise their ambitions to produce world class wines.
The French white varieties are basically three: Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc (Pinot Bianco in Italy) and Sauvignon Blanc. The Chardonnay can be fine. The Pinot Biancos are better, and have found a home in the upper-lefthand line in the "Y" -- that is, along the Adige river upriver from Bolzano. Here, you find the region's greatest cooperative, the Cantina Terlano. They make a wide range of wines in both red and white, but I find their Pinot Biancos to be most interesting, with a lot more depth than you find in their fairly straightforward Alsatian counterparts.
Then there is the best of all three grapes: Sauvignon Blanc! In fact, Peter Dipoli’s “Voglar” is one of my favorite Sauvignon Blancs from anywhere in the world and it’s definitely on my short list of top Italian whites. It’s a wine that is often released several years after the vintage – a testament to its seriousness and complexity. We just offered the 2016 in our newsletter (8 years old as of this writing!) and it is banging.
Dipoli used geologic studies to locate the best site in the region for Sauvignon Blanc, and found it to be fairly high up in the foothills of the Dolomites on the east side of the valley, just below Bolzano. But go a little further south into Trentino, and you also find Sauvignon Blanc with a slightly riper character. If the Sauvignon of the Dolomites offers something like Sancerre or Pouilly Fume, the Trentino version gives something more like Styria or white Bordeaux. Which leads us naturally to our last topic….
Mountain Bordeaux
Two forces propelled Bordeaux’s grape varieties around the world. The first one was phylloxera. When it struck Bordeaux hard in 1869, people took its grape varieties and fled the region, looking for safer terroirs to grow vines. This led to Bordeaux varietal wine in places as far-flung as Chile, California, and Trentino.
The second force came after World War II, and it was the general homogenization of the world that occurred in the following 30-40 years. This was the period when many of the region’s indigenous varieties almost died out, as people and places around the world competed in virtually all domains to be more like the “standard” – which, in the case of red wine, meant Bordeaux.
But Cabernet, Merlot, and Carmenere have now been growing in Trentino for well over a century, and while the varieties will never be considered indigenous to the region, they have certainly very much become an established part of local traditions. More importantly, they produce very good wine!
The best example of this wine, though, is not over 100 years old, although it is produced at a winery that can trace its origins far further back than that. That wine is San Leonardo, which is a true, collectible Bordeaux blend from Trentino. The inspiration for this wine was not Phylloxera, nor 19th century Trentinto tradition, but the resounding success of Sassicaia, the great Bordeaux varietal wine of Tuscany. Indeed, it was Giacomo Tachis, who developed Sassicaia, who saw the potential for Bordeaux varieties in Trentino’s valley and so headed north to develop San Leonardo. Today, San Leonardo does not have the reputation of Sassicaia, but it is a very elegant and delicious bottle of wine that ages quite nicely!
San Leonardo also makes that slightly more tropical version of Sauvignon Blanc that I foreshadowed above. It's delicious. With apologies to Friuli, San Leonardo's may be my second favorite Italian Sauvignon Blanc, second only to the Voglar!
There are other Bordeaux varietal wines from Trentino. Sometimes they are released with significant bottle age, making them interesting acquisitions. But none of them reach the height of San Leonardo. San Leonardo is, frankly, a special wine. It should be part of your wine journey.
Putting it all together: How to Buy, Drink and Collect Wines from Trentino-Alto Adige
Alto Adige, for me personally, is more about wine exploration than wine collecting. It provides a glimpse into one of the most exotic corners of Europe through its indigenous grapes, centuries-old traditions and extreme terroirs. So my general approach to this region of Italy is basically just to try stuff.
I love wines from all four categories that I describe above. I do not cellar very many of them. But I love to see what the wines taste like, usually with something that I”m cooking up at home in the key of Italy.
That said, I love cellars with interesting focuses – sherry, for example, or Special Club Champagnes – and I can very happily imagine one that focused on wines from Trentino-Alto Adige.
What would I put in it? Front and center would be San Leonardo, a world-class wine with a great track record for aging. I am also a big believer in the ageability of Sauvignon Blanc and would probably put a case of Peter Dipoli’s Sauvignon Blanc “Voglar” away every year -- though it is often released with sufficient bottle age that no further cellaring is required.
After that, I would go fully indigenous, and load up with a few top quality Lagreins and Teroldegos. For white, I would go Nosiola, especially from Foradori.
And what about the Germanic varieties? Up until recently, I’ve focused on these wines for immediate pleasure at reasonable prices. But more recent tastings of more ambitious wines have made me think there is some cellar potential here as well, perhaps from a producer like Elena Walch or the above-mentioned Stasserhof. You could take a chance and start cellaring some of these wines – rest assured that when these wines are fully mature in 5 or so years you will be just about the only one to have any!
