MezzaCorona are really quite a sharp bunch. They have over 1600 members; they were named one of Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wineries in Italy, and have a team of agronomists who have pioneered a number of bio-techniques for managing pests in the vineyard without pesticides or herbicides (and I didn’t even get to the architectural wonder that is their new “Wine Citadel” headquarters).

But as interesting as Mezzacorona are, they are not the main attraction today. Rather it is the unusual, high altitude expression of the Muller-Thurgau cultivar, grown, harvested and vinified in the Northern Italian region of Trentino.

In the video, we discuss the short history of this modern engineered cultivar, its lightning fast rise to fame, the global diaspora, and finally what it takes to make this grape actually taste good.

Now, if you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have no idea as to whether MezzaCorona succeeded in their task of producing an explosive, layered, vibrant expression of a grape that has the unfortunate potential to be neutral, bland and lacking acid. To answer that question, you’ll have to hunt it down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs:

👃🏼The vanguard carries quite wild notes of litchi, lime, green melon, lemon spongecake, spicy jasmine pollen, and even pink musk sweets. Yay, verily, this non-binary affair pays no heed to appropriate aroma colours or categories.

👄 The palate is impressively concentrated, with lively ripe oranges, lime cordial notes, more tropical papaya, and some really rather zingy lemonade and green apple notes.