It’s not all about Prosecco!

During this past festive season, how many of us enjoyed a Prosecco?But if you think all Italian sparkling wine is Prosecco, think again! We are helping you rethink the way you drink, with an introduction to TRENTODOC!

The origins of sparkling wine in Trento go back to 1902, when a young wine technician and recent graduate from what was then the Royal Agricultural School of San Michele all’Adige (now the Edmund Mach Foundation and still playing a prominent role in oenological research) with experience in the vineyards and wineries of Champagne, decided to return to Trento and put into practice the secrets he had gleaned from the French.

Today, the Trento DOC classical method is the most popular sparkling wine in Italy. Made mainly from Chardonnay grapes with vinification carried out according to the classical method of secondary fermentation in the bottle, as opposed to the charmat method which is traditionally used for Prosecco. Sugars and selected yeasts are added to the still base wine, which instigate the magic of fermentation in every bottle. Confirmation of its indisputable quality came in 1993 when Trentino spumante was awarded Trento DOC certification, the first of its kind in Italy.

At our sommelier course, we sampled Cantina D’Isera, tasting their Brut and Extra Brut. What were the wines like? Both were delicious, fruity, herbal and fun. The Brut was pale yellow with brassy reflections and fine perlage. The bouquet was pleasant, with some clover and savoury notes mingled with minerality and wet breadcrumbs. On the palate it’s direct and up front, and fairly rich, with nice minerality and moderate acidity that flows into a clean savoury finish.

The Extra Brut, with its clean flavour allowed the perception of the long yeast ripening time. The bouquet was fairly rich, with minerality and gunflint supported by some wood smoke and some wet breadcrumbs, with struck flint and granite. On the palate it’s ample, fairly creamy, and supported by pleasant savoury notes and some mineral acidity.

In both, the bubbles were very fine and numerous, a good sign when drinking a sparkling wine, as it denotes quality. On the palate it had aromas of apple, pears and nuts in my view.

I thought both were perfect as an aperitif or one to drink throughout a meal up until dessert when you need a sweeter wine

Being one to always try new innovative wine related products and share these with our students, we had the opportunity to taste the Trento DOC in ‘Sparkle’ glasses, invented by Mr. Luca Bini, a glass exclusively designed to elevate the organic and olfactory properties of sparkling wines, and in particular Trento DOC.

A stem glass with perfectly studied and balanced proportions, characterised by a wide bowl that recalls the traditional Champagne coupe towards the base, whilst its height suggests a traditional flute. The ample mouth of the glass as well as the linear forms of its walls allow the aromas and perlage of the wine to be channelled towards the upper area of the glass directing them towards the mouth to enhance all the wines qualities. The presence of 7 perlage points, one central and 6 in a circular crown at equal distances from the centre, allowed this innovative stem glass to promote perlage.

It certainly made a different sampling the TRENTODOC from Cantine D’Isera, making it literally mouth-candy as well as eye-candy, witnessing the bubbles rise up from the perlage points, dancing their way up to the surface and enhancing the aromas, the flavours of this easy to drink sparkling wine.