Grape Guide
Lagrein
RedLagrein is a dark-skinned variety native to the Bolzano basin in Alto Adige, northern Italy, where it makes deeply coloured reds and a traditional rosé called Kretzer. It is a natural offspring of Teroldego and a close relative of Marzemino and, more distantly, Syrah, and it ripens best on warm valley-floor sites.
Key characteristics
- Natural cross of Teroldego with a second parent not yet identified with certainty
- Sibling of Marzemino and cousin of Syrah
- Vigorous, with a tendency to poor fruit set in difficult flowering seasons
- Needs warm, low sites, mainly up to about 300 m
- About 545 ha in Alto Adige, roughly 9% of the region's vineyard
Typical flavors
Major regions
Alto Adige (Bolzano and Gries) · Trentino · Paso Robles, California · Victoria, Australia · South Australia · Umpqua Valley, Oregon · Similkameen Valley, British Columbia
Also known as
Lagrain · Lagrein Dunkel · Lagrein Scuro (red wine); Lagrein Kretzer · Lagrein Rosato (rosé)
Lagrein is the signature red of the Bolzano area in Alto Adige. The wines are opaque purple in youth, with a plum, blackberry and dark cherry core, violet and cocoa notes, and often a faint iodine or earthy edge. Tannins are present but usually round, and the best bottlings add sweet spice from oak. A paler, fruitier rosé, known locally as Kretzer or Rosato, is also made.
The grape has had a sharp revival. It had almost vanished by the end of the 1970s, yet plantings in Alto Adige now stand at about 545 hectares, roughly 9% of the region's vineyard, up from about 412 hectares in 2008. Its fortunes turned when growers began to shorten maceration, pick cleaner fruit and age the wine in small oak, which smoothed the rustic character that had held it back. Outside Italy it remains a small, specialist variety.
Lagrein has one of the longest paper trails of any Alto Adige grape, though the earliest entries are puzzling. A document from 1318 in Gries, now a district of Bolzano, mentions white Lagrein, and later references to a white wine of that name appear across the region into the 1500s. What that white wine was is unknown: it may have been a blend, or another variety entirely. The first mention of red Lagrein dates from 1526. The name probably points to the Val Lagarina in Trentino, though the variety itself is considered local to the Bolzano basin.
DNA work has overturned older theories of a Greek or Albanian origin. Lagrein is a natural cross of Teroldego with a second parent that has not been identified with certainty; a Schiava Gentile parent has been proposed, but other pedigree evidence argues against it. Teroldego is a full sibling of Dureza, which is the pollen parent of Syrah, so Lagrein is a sibling of Marzemino, a niece or nephew of Dureza and a cousin of Syrah. Pinot is thought to be a grandparent. A suggested link to the white Lagarino Bianco has not held up.
From Alto Adige and Trentino the variety spread only slowly, first through Italian plantings and later to Australia, California, Oregon and British Columbia.
Lagrein is vigorous and can suffer poor fruit set in cool or wet flowering seasons, which makes yields uneven from year to year. It needs warmth to ripen fully and is planted mainly on lower sites up to about 300 metres, on sand, gravel and the porphyry-derived soils around Bolzano. Canopy management and crop control matter, since vigour and uneven set both work against concentrated fruit. Grown in cooler climates abroad, it has not shown the herbaceous flavours that might be expected, but tannins there tend to be lower than in Alto Adige.
The bulk of Lagrein is vinified as a dry red. Labels may read Lagrein, Scuro or Dunkel (the last two are the dark-skinned designations). Lighter bottlings are aimed at plummy, fruit-driven enjoyment within a few years of the harvest. Reserve wines come from selected vineyards, ferment for an extended period in contact with the skins, and then rest for a year or longer in large casks or barriques before release, gaining structure along with dark chocolate and spice notes. Many bottles reward one or two years of cellaring. The pink version, sold as Lagrein Rosato or Kretzer, is a traditional regional style marked by a rosy hue and berry fruit. Both the Alto Adige and Trentino denominations permit a varietal Lagrein, and in earlier times it was often blended with Schiava Grossa.
Where it grows
Alto Adige
The heartland, with about 545 hectares concentrated in and around Bolzano and the southern Adige valley. Producers include Muri-Gries, Hofstätter, Alois Lageder, Manincor, Tiefenbrunner, Cantina Bolzano and Cantina Terlano.
Trentino
Also grown here, close to the Val Lagarina that probably gave the grape its name. Varietal wines are allowed under the Trentino DOC.
California
About 77 acres (31 hectares) were recorded in 2008, mostly in Paso Robles, where Imagery and Tobin James have bottled it.
Australia
Roughly a few dozen producers in cooler parts of Victoria, South Australia and other southern states. The first plantings came from vines held in a national collection in the late 1980s.
Oregon and British Columbia
Very small plantings in the Umpqua Valley and Willamette Valley in Oregon, and in the Similkameen Valley in British Columbia, sometimes blended with Teroldego.