Wine and Food

Foradori, Fuoripista, Pinot Grigio, 2014, White wine from Italy

6,5 points

I don’t actually know  anyone (!) who wouldn’t praise Elisabetta Foradori as one of the most innovative, inspiring but also dogmatic winemakers in Europe – if not to say in the world. All of her wines are organic and biodynamic. She has a very strong focus on grapes which have their home where her home is: in the southern Dolomites – Trentino. Trentino is in rorthern Italy and is part of the southern Alps. The soil of this region is always influenced by the mountain area. Like wines from Alto Adige, Valais or Brda, regional wines from Trentino are wines of the Alps.

Perhaps because mountain people are often described being obstinate – you could take all positive connotations of this term and connect it with Elisabetta Foradori. She seems to be not only an impressive and ambitious person, but she also has been always ready to take risks and she considers challenges as necessary to achieve a goal, even it seems sometimes like a pie in the sky. She is a protagonist of recreating philosophy of winemaking in harmony with nature, seasons and terroir. Many references are related to her and how she – let me say – creates wine. She, for instance, has been one of the first who fermented and matured wine in amphora – like in ancient times.

According to Elisabetta, she spent the majority of her impressive winemaking life in cultivating Teroldego, from which she makes her most famous and perhaps top wine, called Granato – also one of my favorite red wines in general. Not far behind this, and more and more popular in many top restaurants you can find her white wines, too.

In 2014 her first vintage of Pinot Grigio (Pinot Gris) was produced; recently I had the pleasure to taste this vintage. Maybe the significant difference from all others is the grape. Pinot Grigio is very common, it’s not an exclusive type in this area (although it is very present), and the wine is perhaps more fruity than anything she made before. The vineyard, according to Foradori’s homepage, is called Campo Rotaliano, where she grows vines together with Marco Devigili.

The wine fermented and aged of skin contact in amphora. It’s unfiltered in bottle. These kind of organic natural wines smell and taste very often really like sheep shelter – ignoring the fact that we like wine! Her making of wine instead often accentuate character of grape, origin and vintage. Her Pinot Grigio is fruity and somewhat bitter; creamy, very delicate and wonderfully gratifying. The wine carries the entire character of an Elisabetta Foradori white wine, but is perhaps more amenable to procrastinators who stick with classic wine-making. This wine should not be drunk too cold. After a while there is an additional extravagant flavor which reminds one of walnut shells, radicchio and artichokes. Generally there are similarities between this wine and some light sherry.

This wine would go perfectly with any vegetarian dish as well as maybe with pheasant and rabbit.

There is so much written about Elisabetta Foradori! It reminds me a bit German winemaker Jürgen Leiner who also is described as someone still undiscovered (https://avdwineandfood.net/2015/04/03/spatburgunder-kalmit-weingut-jurgen-leiner-2009). This is bullshit! Since there are thousands of winemakers in Italy that I have never heard of and never will hear of – Elisabetta Foradori is well-known within top gastronomy, in the organic winemaking world, and among inquisitive wine freaks. And she herself is not only a passionate winemaker but also a missionary of a very special approach to her environment. I am saying this with a lot of respect! Foradori’s webpage is like a book and you can spend a whole bottle of wine – if this even sufficient – reading the mentioned philosophy and beliefs. Please see here: http://www.elisabettaforadori.com/