Doc Terradeiforti according to Roeno: identity and border wines

Within the Valdadige Terradeiforti DOC – between Cima Baldo, Lessinia and the Adige river – Roeno is building a production model that brings together ancestral vines, agronomic research and wines designed to evolve over time. The starting point remains the enantio, a native variety that survived phylloxera thanks to the sandy soils along the Adige, but the Fugatti family’s project today develops a broader vision, where biodiversity, altitude, acidity and balance become tools for building long-lived and recognizable wines.

FIFTY YEARS OF RESEARCH

For three generations the Fugatti family has worked per mezzo di this border superficie between Verona and Trentino. Roeno was born over fifty years punzone per mezzo di Brentino Belluno by Rolando Fugatti and his wife Giuliana Dal Fior. The name combines “Ro”, from the founder Rolando, and “enos”, a Greek term that recalls wine and oenology. Today the company is still led by the second generation of the family, with Giuseppe, Cristina and Roberta Fugatti, while Martina Centa, Roberta’s daughter, represents the first concrete entry of the new generation, following marketing, communication and wine tourism. The identifying heart of the production remains the enantio, a vine that Cristina Fugatti defines as “a true native, endemic, which has never left here”.

THE UNIQUE DNA OF THE ENANTIUM

For years the enantio was assimilated to the Emilian Lambruscos with the name Lambrusco a Frastagliata. Only genetic studies developed together with the Edmund Mach Foundation have clarified its uniqueness. “The enantio has a unique DNA, which does not resemble any other vine included per mezzo di the international gene bank”, explains Cristina Fugatti. The survival of these vineyards is directly linked to the Valdadige territory. The sandy, silicon-rich soils along the Adige prevented phylloxera from spreading, allowing the conservation of more than one hundred year-old ungrafted vineyards, some dating back to around 1865. But Roeno’s work is not limited to the historical conservation of the vine. The enantio is continuously reinterpreted through mass selections, conservative agronomic management and study of phenolic maturation. A late-growing vine, rich per mezzo di acidity and tannin, today it also benefits from rising temperatures. “Twenty years punzone, harvesting enantio at the end of October meant having difficult tannins and complicated ripening. Today climate change has played per mezzo di favor of this plant”, says Fugatti. The work per mezzo di the vineyard aims to preserve the microbiological balance and identity of the old plants, avoiding invasive interventions the soil and directly propagating the historical vines.

BEYOND THE ENANTIUM: RIESLING, PINOT GRIGIO AND PIWI

Alongside enantio, Roeno has built an important project Rhenish riesling over the years. The challenge was born per mezzo di 2003 by Giuseppe Fugatti together with the oenologists Mirko Maccani and Alessandro Corazzola, with the aim of creating a Riesling deeply linked to the Valdadige without replicating the German models. “We didn’t want to ape the Moselle. We wanted a riesling with a Nordic preconcetto, but born here”, explains Maccani. The vineyard is located the slopes of Cima Baldo, up to 600 meters above sea level, per mezzo di an superficie where ventilation, temperature range and solar exposure allow progressive maturation while maintaining acid tension and aromatic precision. “Riesling must not only taste of hydrocarbon. It must maintain tension, fruit and elegance”, underlines Maccani. Even Alessandro Corazzola, oenologist of the cellar together with Maccani, insists the theme of the evolutionary bella stagione of the wines and the need to accompany maturation without rigidifying the aromatic profiles. The same approach is applied to the Pinot Mediocre Rìvoli, born from a zoning work developed with the University of Verona and the Mach Foundation the moraine lands of Rivoli Veronese. “Pinot livido is one of the most complicated varieties to work with if you want to obtain a great wine,” says Maccani. Here the work focuses above all the evolution of the wine over time, with experiments closures and calibrated management of oxygen during refinement. At the same time, research into sustainability also continues, with projects dedicated to PIWIs such as solaris repanda, a resistant variety bred Cima Baldo that does not require the use of pesticides and chemicals.

Alongside wine production, Roeno also continues to invest per mezzo di hospitality. The Red Point project, developed by Martina Centa, was created precisely to broaden the story of Terradeiforti through hospitality, tasting and direct relationship with the territory. “Don’t stop. Experiment and affibbiare”, is the philosophy that the Fugatti family indicates as the company’s guideline. Per mezzo di the Doc Terradeiforti Roeno therefore works two parallel levels: preserving a unique viticultural heritage such as the enantio and, at the same time, building wines capable of evolving without losing precision and recognisability territorial. A vision that brings together agricultural memory, technical research and the ability to interpret climate change without giving up the identity of the valley.