Bollini Pinot Grigio Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT 2019

I’ve made it well known where my secret weapon region is for delicious, crisp food-friendly white wines. It’s in the Dolomite Mountains in Alto Adige. I’ve gone for Kurtatsch, Muri Gries, Elena Walch, and I’m adding another to the list. Every time I drink a PG from this region, it’s just rock solid.

While most Pinot Grigio is grown at low elevations for tonnage and then machine harvested – a precious few are given the kind of vineyard care you might expect out of fine white Burgundy. That’s the situation in this precious corner of Alto Adige – because there’s no other choice.

The situation at Bollini is just like that. The province’s territory is almost entirely mountainous but has a complex assortment of shapes and cliffs that cover small distances, making this project a dicey labor of love and one that’s anything but easy to farm.

Luckily, Bollini relies on one of Italy’s superstar consulting winemakers, Franco Bernabei who is a firm believer of the old time saying, “for a wine to be truly great, its vines must suffer.” He dry farms the wines and in 2022, this is the first year that all of the wines are certified Vegan, a commitment by the Bollini family to make wine in the most minimal way, while letting the remarkably fresh mountain fruit speak for itself.