2012 Rosso Faye

This is not just one of Trentino’s best wine estates, but of all of Italy. The merit goes to two extremely talented wine people and friends, Mario Pojer and Fiorentino Sandri who make a large number of wines that are at the top or near the top of the quality heap in each and every one of their respective categories. In short, Pojer & Sandri makes one of Italy’s cleanest, most precise Müller-Thurgaus, an exceptionally good Nosiola, a fortified wine that unless memory fails me is the best made in Italy, and an outstanding Bordeaux-type blend. The estate’s bottles are all instantly recognizable because of their pretty labels, all depicting artwork by Albrecht Dürer, who often passed by Faedo (the town where the estate is located) during his trips and painted many watercolors of the local Trentino panorama. Pojer & Sandri is one of various Trentino estates experimenting also with fungus-resistant grape varieties, for example, their Zero Infinito white is made with Solaris. Solaris is a little-known fungus-resistant variety bred by Norbert Becker in 1975, who crossed Merzling (itself a Seyve-Villard 5276 x Riesling x Pinot Grigio crossing) with Gm 6493 (which is a Zarya Severa x Muscat Ottonel crossing). Though I realize many of these names mean nothing to most people, I point out that Seyve-Villard 5276 is better known as Seyval Blanc, one of the best and most underrated hybrid grapes ever developed, capable of delivering lovely light-bodied and perfumed white wines. Despite the fact that Solaris’ DNA contains traces of non-vinifera species, it is held to be a member of Vitis vinifera.