Vineyards of the Dorigati firm
The Piana Rotaliana overlaps for almost its entirety with the Teroldego Rotaliano DOC surface cultivated.
This "little plot" of land with an extent slightly higher than 400 hectares, includes a part of the municipalities of Mezzocorona, Mezzolombardo and Grumo di San Michele a/A.
According to researches carried out by the Centro di Studi Rotaliani, the area of the Piana Rotaliana is, from a lithological, hydrogeological, granulometric and geochemist point of view, almost unique, and therefore completely different from the rest of the surrounding valley bottom.
These characteristics are mainly due to floods of the Noce torrent which took place in the course of history and in part to those of the river Adige.
The land beyond being of river origin is also in part of glacial origin, since it was precisely glaciations that created the Adige valley and its lateral rock walls .
Originally, the Noce torrent flowed into Adige river at the height of the hamlet of Grumo di San Michele a/A.
In 1848-1854, instead, it was deviated on commmission by the emperors of Austria Ferdinando and Giuseppe, leading it to the current water bed southwards, thus determining the drainage lands of the Piana Rotaliana.
Collaborator of the above said works was the surveyor Luigi Dorigati, founder of our winery. The result is mainly muddy in the upper part, while almost solely pebbly in the lower part.
The overlying muddy part is a very fertile ground layer for vines thanks to the vast mineral supply: mainly granite and limestone of the Presanella group, porphyritic sandstone of the Ortles-Cevedale, quarts porphyry of the Penegal, limestone and dolomite of the Brenta.
At the same time the pebbly part creates an underlying drainage layer that allows rapid drainage of rain water.
This avoids water stagnations harmful for the plant and for the plant growth that would be excessive to the detriment of the quality of the vines.
However, the gounds of the Rotalian land are not (fortunately) completely homogeneous and they differ mainly for the thickness of the upper silty layer and for the height of the ground water.
This latter affects the vigour of the vine, the further it is from the roots, the more balanced the plant will be.
