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Appellation · Italy

Trentino

The Italian-speaking half of the province, and the source of Trentodoc — Italy’s serious mountain traditional-method sparkling wine.

Trentino DOCcontinentalmoderate
What to expect in the glass

Traditional-method sparkling wine that is taut, high in acidity and often long-aged. Still whites are clean and alpine; Teroldego reds are dark and firm.

About Trentino

Trentino sits south of Alto Adige in the same Adige valley, and is Italian-speaking. It is warmer and its wines are generally rounder.

Its most distinctive product is Trento DOC — traditional-method sparkling wine from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grown on mountain slopes, granted in 1993 as Italy’s first designation specifically for the method. The high-altitude fruit gives exactly the acidity a long-aged sparkling wine needs.

Teroldego, grown on the flat gravelly Campo Rotaliano, is the local red of note: deep, dark and firmly structured.

What the name means

Legal name
Trentino DOC
Type
Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)
Set by
MASAF
Recognised
1971
Regulates
Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.

The delimited area, permitted varieties and their proportions, maximum yields, minimum alcohol and — for riserva and similar terms — minimum ageing.

Worth knowing

Trento DOC, granted in 1993, is a separate designation for traditional-method sparkling wine and was Italy’s first.

Grapes

Wines from here

sparkling

Traditional-method sparkling

Sparkling wine with its second fermentation in the bottle, aged on the lees — the method behind Champagne, Cava, Crémant, Franciacorta and English sparkling.

white

Alpine white

Light, low-alcohol, high-acid whites from mountain vineyards in Savoie and northern Italy — mountain wines for mountain food.

Rules worth knowing

Confirmed in the EU register

Trentino is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-IT-A0754, protected at EU level since 1973.

Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013

Specification published: Ares(2018)1456630 · Official Journal

Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.

The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

Traditional-method sparkling

Serve at 8–10°C (fridge cold).

Try with fillet steak, salmon or fish and chips.

Alpine white

Serve at 8–10°C (fridge cold).

Try with fillet steak, salmon or salmon in a cream sauce.

Where to go next

Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.

  • Alto Adige — A German-speaking Alpine province making Italy’s most precise white wines, on vineyards climbing to 1,000 metres.
  • Trentino-Alto Adige — Alpine northern Italy, producing precise aromatic whites and light Alpine reds at altitude.

Sources

Sources consulted