Foresta Blanc 2021

Foresta Blanc 2021

La Vinicola di Antonio Gismondi

From the outset, the palette is admired: a beautiful, intense amber color, and notes of bitter orange marmalade, spices, and fresh sage on both the nose and palate. Foresta is a powerful and robust wine, yet nuanced and sensitive. Marked by maceration, this orange wine offers a veritable explosion of tropical notes and warm spices on the nose, followed by a vibrant, mineral finish and a strong, dense body. Notes of orange peel, dried apricot, and ripeness are evident: this is more of an autumnal wine than a springtime one. Within the Azienda Gismondi repertoire, it represents the robust and structured side of the winery, while exhibiting the purity and freshness that characterize the estate. It comes from a site a little away from the azienda, at a lower altitude, where the Trebbiano Rosa grape variety grows on heavily clayey soils. This terroir, slightly heavier than that of the estate itself, gives the wine a denser, more intensely flavorful nuance that distinguishes it from wines produced at higher altitudes. Trebbiano Rosa makes up 50% of the blend, with Malvasia di Candia making up the remaining half. The manually harvested grapes macerate on the skins for two weeks in open-topped fiberglass vats, then, after pressing, the wine is transferred to stainless steel vats for aging for six to eight months. Bottled without filtration, sulfite, or additives.

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Antonio and Anabel Gismondi's azienda is located in Cerreto Sanita, in the Benevento region of Campania. A microclimate gives this area an almost continental feel: humid winds from the Tyrrhenian Sea collide with the first ramparts of the Apennine chain, causing condensation in the air and lowering temperatures, which are significantly cooler and more humid than on the coast. If we add a thermal inversion phenomenon between day and night, common in the Apennine climate, the freshness of the wines from the Antonio Gismondi estate is nothing mysterious in this southern Italy, which is nevertheless known for its very hot climate. The estate is family-run: for generations, the Gismondi family has cultivated vines and made wine using the most traditional and natural methods, to which are added biodynamic techniques. For a long time, of the fifteen tons of grapes produced each year, one ton was reserved for vinification on site for family consumption, the rest going to the local wine cooperative. It was the meeting with Massimo Marchiori and Antonella of Partida Creus [link] that led Antonio and his wife Anabel to decide to start producing their own natural wines from the entire harvest. The two-hectare vineyard is located between 350 and 380 meters above sea level, on clay, loam, and stony soils, with two-thirds facing south, planted with vines around six years old. The rest faces southwest and corresponds to the Pietre and Cerreto cuvées, with vines thirty years old. The grape varieties are Merlot, Freisa, and Sangiovese for the reds, and Falanghina and Malvasia di Candia for the whites.