Description
Eredi di Cobelli Aldo, Sornì Teroldego “Teroldec”
Today’s wine would jump off the page if I saw it on a wine list, because it’s exactly the kind of affordable rarity that drives sommeliers crazy with desire. First, it features the Teroldego grape, one of the countless indigenous varieties in Italy found in only a few places and nowhere else. Second, it’s one of the few examples of a Teroldego wine you’ll find in our market, and from a unique growing area besides.
If you know Teroldego at all, your introduction to it likely came from the Foradori family, who grow it on Trentino’s Campo Rotaliano, a gravelly flood plain on the west bank of the Adige River. “Teroldego Rotaliano” represents the bulk of this variety’s production, but in the hills of Sornì, on the opposite side of the Adige, the Cobelli family grows Teroldego in a markedly different environment—up in the foothills of the Dolomites, at around 400 meters’ elevation, on a rare vein of chalky limestone soil. Whereas some of the wines of the gravelly Rotaliano plain can resemble Bordeaux in intensity, the Cobellis’ “Teroldec” is a bright, fragrant ‘mountain wine’ reminiscent of some of the greats of the Savoie. Tannins are rounded and soft, but minerals, fruit, and florals are high, making for an invigorating jaunt through some of Italy’s most picturesque vineyard land. Imagine a mash-up of Cru Beaujolais, Saumur-Champigny, and Savoie Mondeuse and you’ve got this wine almost nailed; if none of that means anything to you, just imagine dark woodland-berry fruit and crushed-stone savor in a softly contoured, easy-drinking format. As a lover of mountain reds and Italian ones especially, I can’t praise this one highly enough!
The eredi (heirs) of Aldo Cobelli are Devis, Tiziano, and Ivano Cobelli, who collectively run a winery and farm that has been in their family since the 1800s. Their label honors their late father, Aldo, and the winery and vineyards are situated in the hills above Lavis, in the hamlet of Sornì—a part of Trentino that is also home to one of the region’s best-known producers, Pojer e Sandri (based in neighboring Faedo). The family has begun to practice regenerative agriculture in the vineyards, using only organic treatments and encouraging biodiversity to improve soil health. Situated on lush, vine-draped slopes in the shadow of the Dolomites, and working out of a refurbished winery that was once a stable, this is about as idyllic and bucolic as winemaking gets.
The Trentino-Alto Adige is a broad, dramatic valley walled in on either side by mountains. On the valley floor, as I noted above, the soils are more alluvial (i.e. river-borne) and gravelly, whereas the slopes that climb quickly on either side of the Adige River are an amalgam of glacial moraine, volcanic porphyry and limestone, the latter dominating the soils of the Cobelli vineyards. Fruit for the “Teroldec” bottling is hand-harvested and fermented in large, used wooden vats before being aged in a mix of small and large barrels for a year before bottling. It spent another year resting in bottle before it was shipped stateside, and it’s in a perfect spot for enjoying right now: it’s juicy, floral, and a little smoky, with gentle tannins and appetite-whetting freshness.
In the glass, this 2018 shows off Teroldego’s saturated purple-ruby hue (DNA sequencing has linked Teroldego to both Syrah and Pinot Noir, and there are indeed shades of both in this wine). The fruit is of the black/purple variety, with aromas and flavors of black cherry and raspberry, purple plums, blackcurrant, violet, graphite, black pepper, lavender, and humus. It is medium-bodied and softly contoured, with a pleasant tang lending backbone and refreshment. Decant this 15 minutes before serving in Burgundy stems at 60-65 degrees and you’re good to go—all the better if you’ve got a steak au poivre or some other bistro/osteria classic to go with it. The attached pasta dish should do the job nicely, but then again so would a big après-ski burger. This mountain red is ready for anything. Enjoy!
