Teroldego is a dark purple wine. It has intense aromas of blackberry, anise, plum and currants. The palate is full and rich with flavors of berries, chocolate, bramble and hints of coffee.
Old vineyards in Lodi’s San Joaquin area are the source for these grapes. Rodney Schatz has farmed in Lodi for years and approached us with the intriguing variety, Teroldego. We jumped at the opportunity to produce this little known grape. An extremely old variety, it is the grandfather of Syrah and originally was planted in Northeastern Italy between the rivers Adige and Noce.
The grapes for the 2018 Teroldego are handpicked at first light and brought immediately to the winery where they are destemmed and transferred to a closed-top tank for fermentation. It spent two weeks on skins achieving full extraction, flavor and body. We pressed the grapes and combined the free-run juice, then pressed together for malolactic fermentation. The wine aged in barrels for 15months before bottling. It saw 40% new American oak.