Alois Lageder Conus Lagrein 2021
£21.75
The wine
Aromas of black cherry, plum and liquorice intertwine with earthy undertones. Full bodied on the palate, with concentrated dark fruit and notes of spice. Silky tannins provide structure and lead to a long, persistent finish.
Lagrein is native to Alto Adige and grown almost nowhere else, a descendant of Teroldego and a distant relative of Syrah. It gives deep colour, black fruit and a characteristic bitter-chocolate finish. Conus is the estate's serious bottling of it, aged in oak, and it shows why a grape long dismissed as rustic is now taken seriously.
The producer
Alois Lageder
View all Alois Lageder winesSix generations of one family. Johann Lageder laid the foundation stone in 1823, trading wine alongside his work as a wagon maker, and his successors bought vineyards and began making the wine themselves. In 1934 the family acquired the Löwengang estate at Magrè, still the headquarters today.
From the 1990s Alois Lageder set out to reach a level of quality that was pioneering not only for the winery but for Alto Adige as a whole, and the estate has been the reference point for biodynamic farming in northern Italy ever since. Biodynamics goes beyond organic practice, treating the farm as a single organism and following a calendar of preparations and lunar timings; whatever one makes of the philosophy, the viticulture it demands is unusually attentive.
Alto Adige is Italy's most northerly wine region, German-speaking, and the vineyards climb the slopes above the Adige valley from around 200 metres to well over 800. That range of altitude in a small area is what lets a single estate make convincing Pinot Grigio, Gewürztraminer, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Lagrein, each planted where it belongs rather than where it is convenient.
