Old vines and a new experiment at Barone de Cles

In making wines for the 21st century, family-owned Barone de Cles is taking a page from its own storied past and is recasting itself on a philosophy lifted straight from the Renaissance.

Located in the heart of Italy’s Trentino province, Barone de Cles continues to harvest its grapes from the same 14-hectare vineyard that has been in the family since 1614 and planted with the native teroldego varietal since the 1500s.

A lush, smoky red with trademark traces of bitter almond, teroldego ranks as the jewel in the crown of Trentino wines. Its homeland is the Campo Rotaliano, a rare stretch of plains in this Alpine region where only five percent of land sits below 500 meters.

Split by the River Noce, Campo Rotaliano is a bed of sandy lime soils and scattered gravelly stones, left behind from days when the river regularly flooded and today serve as a key component of vineyard drainage. Mezzocorona and Mezzolombardo, home to Barone de Cles, straddle each other across the river and are the twin hamlets of Campo Rotaliano. Similar homage and preservation of teroldego is taking place at neighbor Foradori.

All three wines in the Barone de Cles lineup are Teroldego Rotaliano, the official designation for 100 percent teroldego wines made entirely from grapes grown within Campo Rotaliano.

Though teroldego may be without a major international following, this wine of the delightfully tongue-twisting name (pronounced tehr-AWL-deh-go) has been beguiling visitors to this section of Trentino at least as far back as the Council of Trent.

Trent, Trento to locals, is the provincial capital and 20 minutes due south from the vineyards of Campo Rotaliano by today’s highway.

Teroldego evidently impressed the gathering of bishops who met in Trent to form the Catholic Church’s response to a growing Reformation movement. References in praise of the wine have been found in the original writings documenting the council.

Held in three stages between 1545 and 1563, the Council of Trent ultimately provided the Church with dogmatic definition for the doctrines that had been called into question by Protestants. Its work was interrupted at various times by political upheaval and threats of war, and at one point its meetings were relocated to Bologna.

Barone de Cles shares even closer ties to this history than most other producers of the region.

A Cles family ancestor, Cardinal Bernardo Clesio, also the first native son to be appointed bishop of Trent, was instrumental to brining the council to the city. His legacy is honored by Barone de Cles with its Cardinale wine label.

Current guardianship for the winery, rebranded in the 1950s to pay homage to the family’s noble lineage, belongs to Giorgio Cles. He inherited the operation from his father and two uncles in 2008. In 2011, he began an experiment of vinifying solely by the age of vines.

Inspiration for the project came from the work of 16th century botanist, and former Cles benefactor, Pietro Andrea Mattioli.

Under the patronage of Cardinal Bernardo Clesio, himself an enthusiastic botanist, Mattioli studied the local flora. Mattioli theorized that the optimum use of individual plants resided in their inherent properties. He compiled findings on Trentino’s surrounding vegetation into a book, printed in 1557, intended as a resource for home remedies.

Mattioli’s premise to value plants for their best natural qualities transfers well to the vineyard, where often the goal is to capture the purest expression of the grapes.

In the case of Barone de Cles wines, the result of adapting Mattioli’s thesis is a unique character study on teroldego. The varietal is showcased through three different stages in the life of the grapevine.

Primo, the youngest wine, comes from vines up to 30 years old. Maso Scari, named for the vineyard where all the grapes are grown, follows and is made from vines 30 to 80 years old. Cardinale is the patriarch, made from ancient vines that remain discreet about their exact age.

The three wines grow in richness and fullness of flavor as the vine selection ages, keeping with a conventional wisdom to revere older vines.

Respect for aged vines grows out of the less-is-more principle of wine. Although older vines produce less fruit, their limited bounty is often prized for its concentration and intensity of flavors.

Vines typically reach maturity between 25 and 30 years before their yields start declining, making the vineyard of Barone de Cles a rare haven for ancient vines. In preserving older plantings, the vineyard has also helped preserve different clones of teroldego that otherwise might have gone extinct.  

A final nod by Barone de Cles to its history with teroldego in Campo Rotaliano is the name Maso Scari shared by its wine label and vineyard. Maso is Italian for a property of adjoining house and vineyard. Scari honors the maiden name of the bride whose dowry brought the land into the Cles family in 1614.

An additional 31 hectares of other Trentino varietals are owned and managed by Barone de Cles, but the fruit is sold to outside producers, leaving the winery’s story to be told by its trio of Teroldego Rotaliano.