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Their names sound like poetry and grand opera, the natural scenery of their locations could hardly be more dramatic: The very own grape varieties of the northern Italian region of Trentino are rooted in a romantic landscape full of moving contrasts and touching beauty. The wine from these vines can also be versatile and exciting. Historical sources testify that it once really was. Until viticulture here, too, was mostly caught up in the industrial trend towards mass instead of class.

But fortunately there is a regional resistance movement. It has dedicated itself to the cultivation of exceptional, local wine qualities - above all Elisabetta Foradori, a winemaker who seems to fear little except characterless wine!

Elisabetta Foradori (Photo: Gundula C. Oertel)

You wish you had eagle wings when you come to Trentino from Verona. With a few powerful wing beats across the narrow valley floor of the Adige River, past narrow river terraces, gentle slopes and up to the rugged rock faces of the Dolomite foothills, that would have to be beautiful. From Avio via Rovereto to Trento and on to the River Noce, which flows down from the Brenta massif on the left and lays its stone-rich alluvial plain, the Campo Rotaliano, at the feet of the towns of Mezzolombardo and Mezzocorona. All along the way, side valleys branch off, where the lush green fringe of vineyards continues. Unstoppable travellers and hurried over-achievers miss out on one of the most beautiful vineyards in Europe!

As a wine-growing region, Trentino has a history that goes back thousands of years. Vineyards have been cultivated here since the time of the Rhaetian-Etruscan settlements, and not just since the Romans paved the Via Claudia from the Po Valley to the Danube two thousand years ago. The cherry-red Marzemino and the garnet-red Teroldego have been cultivated in this region for over five centuries. The white Nosiola is also one of the vines that have been native here since ancient times. Trentino wine was once highly prized in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. "Tyrolean gold" was the name of Teroldego in Vienna at court. And the "excellent Marzemino" of those days is sung about anew with every performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Such hymns of praise have not been passed down from the Nosiola. But it is a fact that this grape variety, too, has always shown its best side in the mild air that blows in from Lake Garda and on the diverse soils of Trentino.

Teroldego Campo Rotaliano (Photo: Gundula C.Oertel)

Typical for the image of local vineyards is still the so-called Trentino pergola. A vine rack that lets the grapes hang in the shade, well ventilated, and thus protects them from too much sun and fungal attack. At the same time, however, a vine training, which promotes high yields, which is considerably at the expense of quality, but accommodates the cooperative production of cheap mass wines. In the course of time, the local vine material, for example Teroldego, was bred for mass production. With the result that the once excellent red had all but disappeared as an independent quality variety of Trentino by the mid-1980s.

Elisabetta Foradori did not want to accept this. In 1985, at the age of barely 20, she began experimenting with Teroldego at her parents' winery in Mezzolombardo after completing her training at the renowned Istituto Agrario Provinciale in San Michele all'Adige. She acquired the necessary knowledge about its best characteristics and its ability to develop from ancient sources. With this in mind, the young winemaker selected her own vine material, abolished the pergola and finally even switched completely to biodynamic viticulture. The Campo Rotaliano, this alluvial plateau of limestone, granite and porphyry right on her doorstep, is really the ideal place for Teroldego, Foradori knows today. Her proof are two dark, expressive wines that combine power and delicacy and are as invigorating as water from the rock spring. Wines that have reclaimed Teroldego's place among the greats on Planet Wine. The winemaker has named the wine "Granato", because pomegranates and vines grow in the same place and come very close to each other in sensuality and vitality. Incidentally, this is also how Foradori explains the name of her only white wine to date, the wonderfully fresh, fragrant Cuveé of Sauvignon blanc and Incrocio Manzoni, a cross between Pinot blanc and Riesling. It is called "Myrto" after the white myrtle blossom, which the ancient Greeks dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

Vine trellis in Vallagarina Trentino (Photo: Gundula C. Oertel)

This year, a second white from Foradori will be presented at Prowein, a Nosiola. This vine, which used to be widespread practically everywhere in Trentino, can now be found in the Valle dei Laghi, the northern tributary of Lake Garda, in the hills of Trento and Pressano and in the Val di Cembra, which branches off to the east opposite Campo Rotaliano on the other side of the Adige. Nosiola is typically a fruity, low-acid white wine with a slightly nutty aroma and at times a delicate bitter note. It makes one curious to see how this variety will show itself under the hands of such an experimental winemaker as Foradori. First, her Nosiola lay on the skins in huge clay amphorae for a full eight months and then on the fine yeast in large acacia barrels for a few more months.

The Endrizzi winery in San Michele all'Adige is also definitely part of the Trentino resistance movement against bland mass wine. Here, too, the quality and typical characteristics of the wines are what count most, and they produce, even if not certified organic, very consciously with respect for the nature and culture of the surrounding area. Paolo Endrici and his wife Christine are the fourth generation to run the winery. And even though the Endricis' ancestors introduced international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot to San Michele, the cultivation of indigenous varieties is traditionally upheld. The estate's Teroldego, called "Gran Masetto", even lays claim to greatness. And not only the wine lovers of Slowfood Italy are happy to concede this. The special thing about this incredibly dense, velvety Teroldego is the partially dried grapes with which it is vinified.

Barbara and Filippo Scienza% Vallarom Trentino (Photo: Gundula C.Oertel)

In the south of Trentino, diagonally opposite Avio, the Vallarom winery nestles on a narrow river terrace on the eastern slope of the Vallagarina. Barbara and Filippo Scienza cultivate eight hectares of vines here according to ecological criteria. The likeable, uncomplicated winegrowers would also have a career as rock musicians. But they prefer to make sure that there is music in their wines. They succeed very convincingly, and not only with the Marzemino, which has its main cultivation area here in Vallagarina. They are proud of their old, ungrafted Marzemino vines. On the upper slopes, some of the vines are still on pergolas, but the majority are grown in Guyot trellises. And the really excellent wine that is pressed from them has all the typical characteristics that one can expect from this variety. It smells delicately of violets and cinnamon, has a good balance of softness and structure and a delicate hint of bitter almond. By the way, Vallarom can also do honour with another grape originally native here, the Lambrusco! Even though Lambrusco has a bad reputation in Germany because of the kitschy mass-produced wine that we got to know and fear here in the 1970s, the Scienzas turn this unjustly discredited grape variety into a really grown-up red wine that deserves attention!

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