Aleatico di Gradoli DOC

A sweet red from the northern shore of Lake Bolsena, made from Aleatico on volcanic soil in four communes of the Viterbese. It is one of the smallest denominations in Lazio and among the more unusual sweet wines in Italy.

The Terroir The registered file describes a predominantly pedemontane and hilly territory with soils of volcanic origin sloping gently towards the basin of Lake Bolsena, and exposures oriented west, south-west and south, giving an airy and luminous environment on ground that drains naturally. Bolsena is the largest volcanic lake in Europe, the flooded caldera of the Vulsini complex, and it does what large bodies of water do — holds off frost, moderates the summer, and reflects light back onto the slopes above it.

The History Viticulture here was begun by the Etruscans, the file says, and has held the role of principal crop through the centuries as attested by Tassoni in 1627 — Alessandro Tassoni, the poet of La secchia rapita, who wrote on Italian wines. The Etruscan claim is not decorative in this corner of Lazio: the Vulsini territory around the lake was one of the heartlands of Etruria.

Grape Varieties Aleatico, alone. It is a red member of the Muscat family — genetically a natural relative of Moscato Bianco — and it carries that ancestry openly: the file describes a garnet-red wine with violet tones, finely aromatic and characteristic, tasting of fresh fruit, soft, velvety, sweet. Four types are registered: the base wine, a liquoroso, a liquoroso riserva and a passito.

The Critical Take A sweet, aromatic, moderately alcoholic red is a hard sell anywhere, and Aleatico di Gradoli sells almost nowhere. Judged fairly it is very good: rose, black cherry and pomegranate, sweet but lifted by the volcanic acidity, and far fresher than the Aleatico grown on Elba or in Puglia. The passito is the serious version and the liquoroso the traditional one. Production has been in slow decline for fifty years and the whole denomination rests on a single cooperative.

Aleatico’s Three Homes The grape survives commercially in exactly three places: here, on Elba, where the passito is a DOCG, and in Puglia. Gradoli is the coolest and the highest of the three, and its wine is correspondingly the most perfumed and the least heavy. Anyone who knows Aleatico only from the Tuscan coast should try this one.

At the Table Almond biscuits, tozzetti, ricotta tarts, and dark chocolate; also, unexpectedly, aged pecorino. Serve at 12–14°C, cooler than most sweet reds.

Benchmark Producers The Cantina Oleificio Sociale di Gradoli, a cooperative founded in 1929, which effectively is the denomination.