All the flavour of Trentino in a wine glass

In a glass of wine, you can find colours, fragrances and tastes, but that’s not all. You can discover an entire territory inside, and not just in the strict oenological sense of “terroir”. You can taste the wood of the barrels and, sometimes, traces of wilder scents in the less compromising wines. You can hear the running water which, along with sunshine, is an indispensable resource for making the grapes plump and juicy. You can detect the winds and the temperatures which have such a strong impact on the ripening and final destiny of the different varieties on the different slopes of the valleys.

If you concentrate even harder and use your imagination, you can sense the hands that cared for the vines throughout the seasons: pruning, binding and harvesting; which, in many parts of Trentino, is still carried out exclusively by hand due to the specific geography of the largely mountainous region. Not to mention the buzz of chatter beneath the vines in September!

In Trentino, vineyards represent an essential part of the landscape, from the flatter, sunnier fields on the banks of Lake Garda to the dry stone walls that bear witness to a heroic legacy of agriculture, like those in the Cembra Valley. The patient toil of the winegrowers and the diversity of the microclimates within our territory are two factors in a formula that produces unique wines and prestigious labels.

Some wines tell Trentino’s story more clearly than others, because the vines from which they come have been rooted here from the very beginning. One indigenous grape variety is the Nosiola, used to produce the prized Vino Santo wine typical of Valle dei Laghi. Marzemino, which comes from Vallagarina and is mentioned by name in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, yields curiously different results on the different slopes of the valley that houses the Adige river. The lord of all Trentino wines is the full-bodied and ruby-red Teroldego from Piana Rotaliana. Legend has it that its vines sprung up from the blood of a dragon that lived in the caves of Castel San Gottardo.

Among the territory’s other fantastic oenological offerings is Müller Thurgau, which, although it is not an indigenous variety, has found its ideal conditions for an excellent yield in the porphyric soil and highly fluctuating temperatures of the Cembra Valley. Then there’s the Chardonnay, the basis for producing the excellent Trentodoc, the now-famous “mountain bubbly” which gave rise to the classic Italian method.