Fontanasanta Nosiola Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT 2021

The grapes for Fontanasanta grow on a hill above Trento with clayey-limestone soils. There, the Manzoni Bianco, a cross between Weissburgunder and Riesling, finds perfect ripening conditions and gives the vineyards their maximum expression. The Fontanasanta only shows its full potential after a good three years and benefits greatly from further years of bottle ripening. Harvested by hand, it undergoes alcoholic fermentation on the skins in cement tanks before maturing for a further eight months in used acacia barrels. Annual production averages 20,000 bottles.

Straw yellow with green reflections, radiant and clear.

The 2021 Fontanasanta Manzoni bianco from the Vigneti delle Dolomiti by Foradori is always a little taciturn when young, so put it in the decanter, preferably upside down. After this shock aeration, it takes a little while for the nose to tentatively open. Not that it becomes garrulous, but rather that it sketches the contours of a wine that will become more precise as it matures. Pome fruit, apples, pears, their skins and a little yeast, along with a bunch of fresh kitchen herbs such as sorrel and chervil, outline the juvenile aromatic nature of this wine, which always comes into its own after three or four years in the bottle.

On the palate, too, the wine is already on the right track, the structural course set. With a firm bite and creamy, yeasty melting on the palate, it shows a fruity base of pome fruit notes and tart herbal spice. The acidity is firmly interwoven into the overall appearance and is firmly coated by the animatingly tart phenolic and delicately citrusy punch. With profound bass on the palate and athletic, sinewy structure, it pulsates into the spicy, tart finish with a long reverberation.