Two Terroirs
Trentino & Friuli
The Mountains
Trentino
We began to explore Trentino as a means of expanding our portfolio: having tasted various wines in the Milan office, we were seduced into taking a trip up north to see where all this exceptionally exquisite wine was coming from. Trentino Alto Adige sits on the southern slope of the Alps, in direct contact with the Po valley and Veneto. The province is almost entirely mountainous, yet in no way a uniform landscape – it takes on a complex assortment of shapes and climatic conditions within relatively small distances.
Trentino Alto Adige is an autonomous region, consisting of two provinces, Trento (Trentino proper) and Bolzano/Bozen (Alto Adige). The Empson wineries are concentrated in Trentino, a rocky landscape covered by vast forests and traversed by the river Adige. Viniculture here has very old origins: by the time Rome was conquered, the area was already blessed with excellent wines, and Emperor Augustus made no secret of his preference for the wines of “Tridentum” – as Trentino was then known.
1971
The year the Trentino DOC was established – one of the first in Italy.
20
Grape varieties grown across the Trentino DOC, from Pinot to Teroldego.
The quality standards in the region are among Italy’s highest, closely supervised by top wine academies such as the famous Istituto Agrario di San Michele all’Adige. For this reason, we selected Trentino as the premier region for our own, proprietary Bollini brand.
Between Alps and Adriatic
Friuli
Situated in the north-east of Italy, Friuli-Venezia Giulia feels as much Slavic and Austrian as it does Italian – a crossroads of civilisations, alternately shaped by different European powers throughout history. Between mountains, hills, rural central plains and a coastal strip, the region offers a striking variety of landscapes within a short distance.
In the same eventful 1970s that saw part of Friuli struck by a disastrous earthquake, Friulian winemaking began making waves of an entirely different order, gradually becoming a leading region for Italian whites of unparalleled structure, character and aroma. The varietal map reflects the region’s multicultural tradition, flanking international grapes like Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, Cabernet and Merlot with native varieties such as the celebrated Friulano and the fragrant Ribolla Gialla.