Foradori Teroldego Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT 2024 1500ml Magnum

A Teroldego of cool, dark stature: violet and wild blackberry over wet slate, with an almost salty minerality. Juicy in build, never heavy, with a freshness drawn from the mountain valley where it grows. The 1500 ml Magnum is the format for a long table.

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's heat; by night cool mountain air flows down through the valley. That contrast shows in the glass: the fruit fullness of day, the tautness of night.

Teroldego was once poured at the Council of Trent and had nearly vanished by the 20th century due to mass-production yields. Elisabetta Foradori took over the estate in 1984 and brought the variety back through meticulous clonal selection, working with the University of Milan and the San Michele research centre. Today 28 hectares are Demeter-certified, 80 percent of them planted with Teroldego. Instead of barrique, the estate works with Spanish clay amphorae, the tinajas, in which wine and skins breathe for eight months; wood used to overlay the variety, clay lets it speak. Since 2013, son Emilio has led the winemaking.

Dark fruit with drive: blackberry and dark cherry, carried by lively acidity and fine-grained tannin. The finish stays cool, salty and mineral.

Demeter logo on the label. The estate also includes a biodynamic farm with Tyrolean grey cattle, a vegetable garden and its own cheese dairy.