2019 Foradori Nosiola Fontanasanta Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT - Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT (5/8/2023)
For what ever reason, I had it in my head this would be an esoteric drinking experience, but that was far from the case in reality. Tremendous purity, and in the early going it came across like a white burgundy, perhaps a Mersault, with its juicy, mineral laced palate with an enticing sweetness. As it warmed, more herbal traits became apparent around the perimeter but still maintained a lovely core of sweet lemony goodness. Extremely versatile white that I can envision enjoying with a great range of fare. (93 points)
Elisabetta’s Nosiola is, yr in & yr out, a fantastic wine.
What I find striking about all her wines is that she’s a natural winemaker, yet you never get any natty/funky/unclean character whatsoever.
Tom
Good points Tom, this was clear as spring rain water. I had enjoyed Foradori wines in the past but got the “Dale, please ensure we have these wines to drink as Elizabetta seems like a boss” go ahead from my wife after seeing a great segment on The Wine Show” some years back.
Her new PinotGrigio '21 is absolutely amazing. It has 8 months of skin-contact, which would normally result in a wine laden w/ phenolic/VM/tannic character. But it has an amazing amount of PG/floral character and, of course, clean as a whistle. She makes amazing wines. And a gem of a lady. These are the kind of people I love to support.
Tom
“Her new PinotGrigio '21 is absolutely amazing. It has 8 months of skin-contact, which would normally result in a wine laden w/ phenolic/VM/tannic character. But it has an amazing amount of PG/floral character and, of course, clean as a whistle. She makes amazing wines. And a gem of a lady. These are the kind of people I love to support.”
Thanks for this note. Excuse my ignorance, but what is “VM” and “PG” character?
PG is obviously Pinot Grigio, if we’re talking about the variety.
“VM” is a bit more cryptic - it’s most likely Tom’s own way of saying orange wine / skin contact wine, ie. “vini macerati”. I myself can’t understand for the life of me why he stubbornly wants to use a random Italian term used by no-one else (and why he refers to even single wines as “vini macerati” - which is a plural, translating to “macerated wines”), but that’s a different story.
Well, Otto… to me, VM is a more precise way to describe skin-contact whites. There are plenty of skin-contact wines the are clear and not orange.
It’s not a random Italian term. It’s a precise description of the process that was coined by Bobby Stuckey in his outstanding book on the Wines of Friuli. So that’s two of us… at least. So I will continue to use it. Besides… it makes me sound highly edumacated!!
Do you have any idea how long it took me to get DollyParton Viognier (or DP Viognier for short) become part of the wine vernacular?? With the appropriate hand gestures?? It took several yrs afore the term was universally accepted!!
And I will prevail in getting VM into the wine lexicon!!
Sorry about using VinoM and ViniM. I try to be careful in my usage!!
Tom
Yet still I really can’t understand how the term “vini macerati” is a more precise way of describing skin contact whites than, say, “skin contact whites”. “Vini macerati” means just macerated wines, so it should by default include all red wines as well. After all, they are macerated wines, too, which is why I’ve always thought the term was pretty stupid if you use it to describe only macerated whites. Bianchi macerati would be more apt term if you want to talk about skin-contact whites in Italian.
And I know there are plenty of skin-contact whites (or orange wines) that are not orange. I also know tons of white wines that are not white or lots of red wines that are not red.
Finally, dropping a term “vini macerati” in the middle of an English sentence sounds - at least to me - as weird/clumsy/pretentious as talking about mousserande vin or rode vijn or vinos de postre in the middle of an English sentence. In my little mind, it really doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It might make a little bit more sense if the term was just “macerated wines”, because it just doesn’t magically transform into something more precise only if you write or utter the term in Italian instead of English.
