Origin:	Italy / Lombardia
Grape variety:	Gropello, Marzemino
Label:	Vegan
Ripening potential:	1 to 5 years after harvest
Drinking temperature:	16 to 18 °C
Food Pairing:	Italian antipasti, Latin American dishes, Cold fish dish, dried meat, Cheese board, Spaghetti alla bolognese, Pizza or Flammkuchen
Vinification:	soft pressing
Harvest:	hand-picking
Maturation:	in steel tank, some months bottle storage before sale
Bottling:	filtration
Maturation duration:	9 months
Volume:	13.5 %
Note:	Contains sulphites

Producer

Azienda Agricola Pratello

In Padenghe sul Garda, a small medieval village at the south-western end of Lake Garda, lies the traditional but also progressive Azienda Agricola Pratello.

Vincenzo Bertola directs this agricultural estate, which comprises a total of 100 hectares. 45 hectares of which are planted with vines. In addition, olives, cereals, vegetables and fruit are also grown. Forests and pasture land, on which an Alpaca herd frolics, form part of this estate. The soil, mainly moraine soil with some clay, is loose, stony and dates back to the glacial period. The climate is generally mild and is under the influence of the nearby lake.

Grape variety

Gropello

Culinary delight

The designation Groppello derives from the dialect term "Gropo," which means "knot." This name alludes to the appearance of the grapes. It is applied to various vine varieties which bear such knotty grapes, and therefore it does not make sense to talk about a particular Groppello variety.

Marzemino

Mozart’s Inspiration

Around 20 different grape varieties are cultivated in Trentino, Italy, all of which provide extremely varied wines. The red Marzemimo also originates from these vineyards, and it is a grape which even found its way into opera. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stayed frequently in Trentino, and he loved the dark red wines pressed from Marzemino so much that he composed a memorial to the wine for his opera Don Giovanni. His Marzemino aria begins, “Versa il vino! Eccelente Marzemino.”

This inspiring vine has been cultivated since at least Roman times, and its home is surely Italy. While it has been alleged that the grape stems from an Austrian village called Marzemin, there is no such village

Country

Italy

Italy – Where wine is a way of life

The Italian wine regions are extremely diverse, and this is made clear in their wines. Established varieties such as Merlot, Syrah, and Sauvignon can be found on just 15 percent of the total vine growing area. The remaining 85 percent is reserved for autochthonous, indigenous varieties. More than 2,000 different grape varieties are grown under diverse conditions and pressed with various techniques into wines that reach the top tier of the international wine market.