Elisabetta Foradori Lezer, 2022, 750ml

Description

Elisabetta Foradori is the top producer of Teroldego, an ancient, native grape variety that is related to Syrah and Pinot Noir.  In 1985, at the age of 19, Elisabetta took over her father’s estate in the Campo Rotaliano zone of Trentino in the foothills of the Dolomites. At the time, Teroldego was an also-ran variety whose high-yielding grapes were either sold in bulk to co-ops or were being uprooted in favor of more saleable varieties such as Pinot Grigio and Merlot. Elisabetta, then a young-woman just out of enology school, doubled down on the grape, achieving such success that by 1999 she was being referred to as the “undisputed top producer of Teroldego.” With this version, however, made for Lezer, a new project of Foradori’s sons Emilio and Theo Zierock, Emilio, who is now head winemaker, has taken the grape in quite another direction. Lezer is the product of around twenty different experiments from the home vineyards, of which three quarters went into the final blend. Some went into amphorae (large clay pots), some into oak, some into steel, some into cement, some with the floating cap method and others with direct press. The result is this juicy creation that is pure, zesty, light, unpretentious but with a degree of seriousness.