Top 12 Trentodoc sparkling wines

We count down 12 top sparkling wines from Trentodoc, which was the first DOC created in Italy just for traditional method fizz.

12. Moser 51.151

Blend: 100% Chardonnay

Dosage: 4.5 g/l

Winemaking: 20% of the base wines are aged in barriques for six months

Time on lees in bottle: 30 months

Production: 30,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £30

Nose: Youthful, bright, chalky citrus nose with a touch of toast

Palate: Very pure, clean lemon and pineapple fruit, a fine mousse, and a good balance. This is a youthful, quite ripe style of sparkling with very pure lemon and stone fruit, that is both attractive and well made, as well as persistent, finishing very dry with a fresh citrus zip.

Score: 89

11. Revi Paladino 2010 Extra Brut

Blend: 100% Chardonnay

Dosage: 2 g/l

Winemaking: Base wines are fermented and aged in 100% stainless steel

Time on lees in bottle: 48 months

Production: 2,000 bottles

Price: Approx £65

Nose: A toasty nose with a lovely note of freshly struck match denoting a sparkling with a reductive character from extended lees ageing.

Palate: Lovely notes of toast, grilled nuts and smoke, a touch bready too. Beneath that is lemon and pineapple fruit. This has a good level of complexity, a medium body and a fine mousse, and then a very dry finish.

Score: 90

10. Fondazione Edmund Mach, Mach Riserva del Fondatore 2011

Blend: 70% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Nero

Dosage: 5 g/l

Winemaking: 35% of the Chardonnay is aged in barriques for 6 months

Time on lees in bottle: 44 months

Production: 13,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £25

Nose: Ripe and full, with buttered bread, a touch of toast and apple.

Palate: Some woodiness, toast, cream, white peach and pineapple, with a medium body. This is a ripe but fresh style, with complexity and persistence. Still youthful, it has a slightly coarse mousse but lovely fruit weight and character – and a clear but complementary barrel influence.

Score: 90

9. Ferrari Perlé 2010

Blend: 100% Chardonnay

Dosage: 6 g/l

Winemaking: Base wines are fermented and aged in 100% stainless steel

Time on lees in bottle: 5 years

Production: 450,000 bottles

Price: £25

Nose: Lovely inviting aromas, gently reductive with smoky struck match character and toast (reminiscent of Champagne blanc de blancs from a producer such as Henriot).

Palate: Smoky, toasty, very dry and a touch firm, with some green apple acidity offset by a hint of ripe white stone fruit at core. Lovely complex reductive autolytic character, and great persistence. A fresh, bright aperitif-style sparkling.

Score: 90+

8. Maso Nero 2010

Blend: 100% Chardonnay

Dosage: 7 g/l

Winemaking: 50% of the base wines are aged in barriques for 6 months

Time on lees in bottle: 58 months

Production: 6,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £25

Nose: Bready and creamy aromas suggesting extended lees contact and some barrel influence.

Palate: A vanilla creamy edge suggests the base wine has spent some time in barrel, which complements a generous core of ripe yellow fruit, along with a touch of toast and struck match too. It is like a good Californian Chardonnay with fizz, although it has a bright chalky finish. Long, intense, full bodied, but also fine and complex with attractive toasty element. Touch of apple skin on finish, then vanilla pod, and a powerful frothy mousse.

Score: 91

7. Methius Brut Riserva 2010

Blend: 60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Nero

Dosage: 5.8 g/l

Winemaking: 20% of the Chardonnay aged barriques for 7 months

Time on lees in bottle: 60 months

Production: 14,000 bottles

Price: £35

Nose: An attractive gently smoky toasty aroma, suggesting an autolytic reductive style, with creamy vanilla note too (presumably from a proportion of barrel ageing).

Palate: Toasty and smoky, with an almost resinous herbal edge too, some butter and cream, along with a touch of pineapple. This is quite a full and ripe style, with a lovely smooth creamy texture and persistent mousse. Very good and complete now.

Score: 92

6. Endrizzi Riserva Pian Castello 2011

Blend: 60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Nero

Dosage: 6 g/l

Winemaking: 10% aged in barriques for 7 months

Time on lees in bottle: 42 months

Production: 9,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £35

Nose: Attractive creamy, buttery almost sweet aromas with some marshmallow, along with some appealing gently reductive smoky toasty notes.

Palate: There is some oak, a slightly woody taste, with some sweet vanilla and toast, along with a lovely core of white peach and lemon, a touch of apple skin, and some bready leesy character. It seems quite youthful, and has a fine mousse, and just enough acid lift to keep this ripe style of sparkling refreshing. Lots going on.

Score: 92

5. Cantina Rotaliana di Mezzolombardo Redor Riserva 2008

Blend: 70% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Nero

Dosage: 6 g/l

Winemaking: 10% aged in barriques for 4-5 months

Time on lees in bottle: 50 months

Production: 12,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £35

Nose: Creamy, with a touch of vanilla and brioche sweetness, as well as a hint of grilled nuts, apple skin and citrus.

Palate: A delicious combination of brioche and grilled nuts along with a barrel-influenced vanilla cream taste and texture, complemented by a dry finish with a lemony bite.

Score: 92 points

4. Rotari Flavio 2007

Blend: 100% Chardonnay

Dosage: 6 g/l

Winemaking: 20% of the Chardonnay is fermented and aged in oak barriques

Time on lees in bottle: 5 years

Production: 10,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £30

Nose: An interesting mix of bread from extended lees contact, ripe pineapple fruit, along with some appealing oxidative characters such as apple skin and honey

Palate: A creamy flavour and texture from some barrel influence, along with ripe pineapple character, bread and toast, leading to a fresh apple finish with a touch of chalky dryness. Balanced and persistent.

Score: 92

3. Altemasi Riserva Graal 2004 (disgorged in 2011)

Blend: 70% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Nero

Dosage: 5 g/l

Winemaking: Mix of fermentation and ageing in stainless steel and barriques

Time on lees in bottle: More than 60 months

Production: 13,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £30

Nose: Lovely creamy nose with almost sweet vanilla note

Palate: Vanilla cream, some ripe pineapple and a hint of apple skin, but a sparkling wine that is more about creaminess than fruitiness. A fine persistent mousse, smooth, this wine doesn’t seem too aged, and has just hint of bruised apple. As the wine finishes, there is a touch of slightly mouth-coating chalkiness. A sparkling of brightness and ripeness, along with a creamy texture from some barrel influence, but this is not woody.

Score: 92

2. Maso Martis, Madame Martis, Brut Riserva 2006 (disgorged March 2016)

Blend: 70% Pinot Nero, 25% Chardonnay, 5% Pinot Meunier

Dosage: 5 g/l

Winemaking: Fermentation and ageing in stainless steel for the red grapes and barriques for the Chardonnay

Time on lees in bottle: 9 years

Production: 1,000 bottles

Price: Approx. £75

Nose: Lovely, really smoky, reductive characters of grilled nuts and freshly toasted bread

Palate: A creamy and full-bodied sparkling wine with buttered toast, smoke, some apple, apricot, along with a taste of ripe raspberries at its core. Finishes dry, and fresh, with hints of red fruit and whipped cream along with toast. Hard not to drink with firm refreshing apple bite on the finish.

Score: 94

1. Letrari Brut Riserva 2009

Blend: 60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Nero

Dosage: 6.4 g/l

Winemaking: 5% fermented and aged barriques for 4 months

Time on lees in bottle: 60 months

Production: 18,000 bottles

Price: £30

Nose: Lovely smoke and roasted coffee aromas suggestive of extended ageing on the lees.

Palate: Similarly, the palate suggests a long period in contact with the lees, shown by a wonderful smoky toasty grilled nutty character with some aged fruit – there is a dried apricot character. It is ripe, but still lively. Lots of Champagne-like autolytic flavours, but this is not oxidative. Long, fine, complex toasted nutty style of sparkling with long lees ageing character and pure fine ripe yellow fruit at its core. Just starting to develop lovely cappuccino creamy coffee flavours. Mousse still persistant, but bubbles very fine. A master of the flight. Delicious.

Score: 95

All the wines that featured in this list were tasted blind at the Trentodoc institute at the Palazzo Roccabruna in central Trento in September this year as part of an extensive sampling of wines from 22 different producers. (However, the Altemasi Riserva Graal 2004, the Maso Martis Madame Martis Brut Riserva 2006 and the Rotari Flavio 2007 were tasted at the wineries of each of these producers).

General impressions

Following the tasting and a tour of the region, it seems there are a few hallmarks of Trentodoc sparkling wines worth mentioning. A key element is the use of high altitude Chardonnay fruit, much of which is trained in pergolas. Due to Trentino’s Mediterranean climate, this Chardonnay does give the wines a ripe pineapple and stone fruit character, but the pergola training and cool nights at high-altitude vineyards (up to around 700m) in the foothills of the Dolomites also gives the wines a fresh apple-like acidity (malo-lactic is either full or partial). Aside from the fizz from Maso Martis, all the wines featured above are either made with 100% Chardonnay, or they are Chardonnay dominant. (Producers tend not to label their wines ‘Blanc de Blancs’ even though many are pure Chardonnay).

Generally the dosages are low, 7g/l or below, while, for the top cuvées, the use of oak barriques to age a proportion of the Chardonnay is common. This gives a strong stamp to many of the wines, bringing a creamy and sometimes vanilla character, which complements the ripe stone fruit.

Finally, long lees ageing imparts a toasty character to the wines, although Trentodoc sparklings tend to be more fruity in style than either Franciacorta or Champagne, which tend to be more explicitly autolytic.

Also, it should be noted that the base level of Trentodoc is high – there are few examples of thin wines with hard acid and little fruit or texture. The style is somewhere between the fresh, chalky style of traditional method fizz from Champagne and the ripe buttery character that can be found in some Californian sparklings. In short, Trentodoc offers a ripe, quite full and fruity style of sparkling but with quite a refreshing – not hard – acidity.