Sgarzon Teroldego Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT 2021

A cool red that doesn't seek its depth through power. At 12.5 percent alcohol, the Sgarzon stays slender and clearly defined, the fruit precise, the minerality tangible.

The Campo Rotaliano is a valley plain wedged between three-thousand-metre peaks. Over millennia, the Noce river has deposited limestone, porphyry, and gneiss from the Dolomites here. By day, the rock walls reflect the sun back into the valley; by night, cool mountain air settles in. The Sgarzon vineyard is rooted in dolomitic limestone, and that chalky coolness runs through the entire wine.

Teroldego was already being poured at the Council of Trent; in the 20th century, mass yields ruined its reputation. Elisabetta Foradori, who took over the estate in 1984 at the age of twenty, restored the variety through years of mass selection carried out with the University of Milan and the San Michele research centre. Today, 28 hectares hold Demeter certification, 80 percent of them planted with Teroldego; since 2013, her son Emilio has led the winemaking. The wine is aged for eight months in Spanish clay amphorae, the tinajas, where wine and skins breathe. Oak is avoided, as it would overshadow the Teroldego.

The nose shows violets and wild blackberries, with wet slate underneath. On the palate, juicy dark berry fruit, taut acidity, and fine-grained tannins, the finish dry and long, carried by an almost saline minerality.

The Demeter logo appears on the label. Behind it stands a biodynamic farm: Tyrolean grey cattle graze among the vines, a vegetable garden supplies the estate kitchen, and a weekly market offers cheese, eggs, and freshly harvested produce. Elisabetta Foradori herself now works in the estate's own creamery.