Girlan. Lagrein

Südtirol DOC
Grape: Lagrein

This Lagrein is unique, dark, brooding, laced with bramble, spice and sloe.  Girlan have crafted an absolute classic, there is no Riserva any more so, this is where you will find the best grapes and the expression is so pure and the concentration immaculate.  A beautiful wine.  13%

Lagrein was a wine once reserved for the nobility, the courts and the church, this however changed in 1526 when Michael Gasmayr could take no more and roused the farmers in a revolt for the right to drink Lagrein.  It is probably the blackest of all wines, thought to be Greek in origin though DNA research has disproved this and thrown some light onto its complicated past; one parent is Teroldego, the other parent is, as yet, unidentified!

Girlan’s Lagrein grapes are taken from a part of the Bassa Atesina where the warm, deep sandy soils are ideal for Lagrein.  The harvest is by hand, bunches are de-stemmed prior to a long fermentation in temperature-controlled steel tanks.  Malolactic fermentation and ageing is then in a mixture of large botti and lined concrete tanks lasting 8 months.

Conspirators Wine Club October 2019