About Foradori
Foradori is a family winery based in Mezzolombardo in the Trentino region of northern Italy, led by Elisabetta Foradori since the 1980s. The estate is particularly known for its work with Teroldego, an indigenous red grape variety grown on the Rotaliano plain. Foradori has been a leading proponent of biodynamic viticulture in Italy and is recognized for producing Teroldego wines of notable depth and complexity.
Prices are for take away and shipping. The wine bar serves from its own list.
The winery
About Foradori
History
The Foradori winery in Mezzolombardo dates to 1901, and Vittorio Foradori bought it in 1939. After his death, Gabriella Casna Foradori ran it from 1976. Her daughter Elisabetta made her first vintage in 1984, when she was twenty and just out of wine school.
Elisabetta's son Emilio began working with her in 2012, and the estate is now a family affair across two generations. Today the name Foradori is closely tied to Teroldego, the red grape of the Campo Rotaliano, which Elisabetta has done much to bring to wine drinkers outside Trentino.
The land and the vineyards
The estate lies in the Campo Rotaliano, a flat plain at the foot of the Dolomites in Trentino. Soils are calcareous clay and alluvial gravel. Vines are mostly trained vertically, unlike the pergola system common in the region.
Elisabetta began converting the estate to biodynamic farming in 2002, and it was certified in 2009. Around 28 hectares are planted, most of them Teroldego, with Manzoni Bianco, Nosiola and Pinot Grigio making up the rest. The Teroldego includes many clones kept from the estate's own selection of old vines and from seed.
The wines
Teroldego is the heart of the cellar. Sgarzon comes from a small vineyard of about 2.5 hectares near Mezzolombardo on sandy alluvial soil, and it ferments and ages in clay vessels. Other single vineyard Teroldego wines carry the names of their plots, so a bottle tells you which patch of the plain it came from.
The whites include Nosiola, Fuoripista Pinot Grigio and Manzoni Bianco, some of them aged in Spanish clay tinajas. Over the years the cellar has moved from small oak towards clay, with large oak and acacia casks still in use for part of the range.
Today
Output is around 150,000 bottles a year. Foradori is among the best known names for Teroldego, and it is run as a family estate with Elisabetta and Emilio, who keep working with biodynamic methods in the vineyard and clay in the cellar.
- Founded
- 1901
- Vineyards (hectares)
- About 28
- Main grapes
- Teroldego, Manzoni Bianco, Nosiola, Pinot Grigio
- Owners
- Foradori family
- Winemaker
- Elisabetta Foradori