I’ve been working through Cavinona’s exchange case (a tough job, I know, but somebody’s gotta do it) and I’m using my Covid-19 time to be more disciplined and write down my views on the wines I try. The latest is Marco Donati’s 2018 Teraldego Rotaliano. Teraldego is a red grape indigenous to Trentino and which thrives in the gravelly, sandy Rotaliana plain next to the Adige river. That’s about as far north as a red wine grape would grow in Italy, I would think. Yes, I had to look up this grape.

There are a handful of true believers specializing in this grape. Marco Donati, the next generation running a 150-year old family wine business, is one of them. His dedication to quality vinification of this grape certainly shows in this bottle. The wine is dark garnet red in colour verging on purple but not opaque. Aromas feature red berries and plums with herbal notes that I can’t put my finger on. On the palate, the wine shows lush jammy fruit with quite zesty acidity to keep it refreshing. Medium to full bodied but not heavy thanks to a low(ish) 12.5% ABV (remember when that was the norm?). The wine tapers off with pleasantly bitter notes and it is only here that I became aware of the light tannins. It won’t ever be mistaken for a vino da meditazione but I really enjoyed it. A really versatile food wine.