2023 Foradori ‘Lezer’ Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy

70% Teroldego/15% Schiava/10% Lagrein/5% Merlot. Lezr (“light” in local dialect) was a new wine born of the challenging 2017 vintage, when Foradori’s Teroldego crop was roughed up by a summer hailstorm. The remains were turned into this short-maceration red wine, named for its light color and body. This first Foradori vin de soif was a wild success, and the family has continued making the wine in every vintage sense. They experiment every year with the mix of varieties, vessels and percentage of whole bunches. The fruit comes from a total of 8 hectares of vines scattered about in their village and beyond, on the sandy, gravelly alluvial soils so typical of this Dolomitic terroir. The spontaneous fermentation, short maceration and brief aging take place in a combination of cement, steel, old wood and amphora. Like the wine in the bottle, the label changes slightly each vintage.