Unless you’re a skier, the start of summer is the perfect time to be in the Alto Adige. Along the serpentine road from Chiusa to Cortina d’Ampezzo, gondolas that would be packed in wintertime carry relatively light loads of hikers, most of whom head for the high country of St. Ulrich or Wolkenstein. Dressed in shorts and T-shirts, they scatter like mice across the broad meadows and disappear into the glades, shading their eyes as the sun bounces off the snow in the Dolomites. The thin mountain air lends resonance to every little sound: the clank of a cowbell, a distant laugh, the whine of a remote-controlled airplane as it buzzes the blooming wildflowers.
It’s July 2, a crisply sunny afternoon in the hills of St. Ulrich. We’ve climbed to more than ten thousand feet, well above the thick tufts of humidity that clog the valley below. The stripped-down ski runs, strewn with boulders and thick with tall grass, are tantalizingly empty. This has been a four-hour trek along a high ridge and then back down to town, followed by a bowl of giant canederli (bread and flour dumplings), which are flecked with chunks of smoked bacon and swimming in broth. By the end of dinner the blindingly bright day turns black and thick as tar, making the drive out of St. Ulrich feel like a ride through a mineshaft.
But once on the autostrada, which follows the Isarco River down to Bolzano, everything is ablaze: Huge fires are burning in the hills that flank the Isarco and Adige river valleys, continuing on past Bolzano like a string of Christmas lights. Many of them are built in the shapes of hearts and crosses, casting a glow over vineyards that cling to the steep mountain slopes. In Caldaro (Kaltern), a wine town on the strada del vino southwest of Bolzano, people sit in the cafés with plates of bresaola (air-cured beef) and pitchers of wine, staring up at the blazes as if there were a movie playing.
The occasion for the fires is the Festa di Sacro Cuore (Day of the Sacred Heart), typically held two Sundays after the better-known Corpus Domini celebrations in late June. Fires in the mountains have long been a summertime ritual in the Alto Adige, first as pagan offerings to the sun gods and later as Christian tributes to Saint John, whose saint’s day coincided with the summer solstice. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that they evolved into the Fuochi di Sacro Cuore, commemorating Christ’s protection of the Alto Adige—then known only as the Südtirol, or South Tyrol—during the Napoleonic Wars.
In essence, the fuochi are symbolic “signal” fires, built to herald an invasion that never happened. Legend has it that Napoleon, after arriving in Milan in May of 1796, had planned to pass through the southern Tyrol en route to Innsbruck, where he would meet up with one of his generals and then march on to Vienna. On hearing this, religious leaders in the region convened a special council at the Duomo in Bolzano. They made a solemn oath in front of the altar of the Sacred Heart, praying that Christ would ward off the advancing French troops.
Napoleon got as far as Trento, but decided against continuing on through the Brenner Pass and instead headed east to Belluno, attacking Vienna by way of Friuli–Venezia Giulia. He wound up annexing the Alto Adige anyway, but that miraculous right turn out of Trento was given its own place in the religious mythology of the region. It might be considered just another festa in a country that seems to have one every day, but Sacro Cuore is unique in that it is markedly un-Italian—even the neighboring Trentino, to which Alto Adige is attached as a political entity, doesn’t celebrate it. The mesmerizing fuochi are not just religious offerings but almost a gesture of defiance, a uniquely Tyrolean tradition in a place that in some ways still considers itself a part of Austria.
Sometimes the Trentino–Alto Adige union feels natural, other times forced. The two regions share a physical similarity and a good amount of history, but the more northerly Alto Adige remains aloof not just from Trentino but from Italy as a whole. Both regions were under Austrian rule from the start of the nineteenth century to the end of World War I, when they were annexed to Italy as “Venezia Tridentina” in 1919. The difference is that the Alto Adige, consisting of the province of Bolzano, had been the southern part of Austria’s Tyrol state since the Middle Ages. Trentino, the province of Trento, had been more of an occupied territory, ruled for centuries by prince-bishops. It was only officially annexed to the Tyrol in the 1800s.
The common denominator is the Adige River, which cuts a celadon-green course from the Swiss Alps through Bolzano, Trento, and Verona on its way to the Adriatic. It’s the thread that binds the “Tre Venezie,” and it may well have been the point of entry for many of the region’s indigenous grape varieties. Some experts believe that Trentino’s marzemino grape, among others, came from Greece by way of the Adriatic and then the Adige. It may well have been planted by ancient Veneti tribes, who some think were refugees from Troy.
In this context, Trentino–Alto Adige doesn’t seem quite as Germanic as it does on the surface. Confounded as we may be by its German street signs and Austrian Jügendstil architecture, the argument could be made that the region is as Italian as anyplace else on the peninsula. Maybe it’s easier to imagine Greeks and Romans in the south, but they left their mark up here as well.
Trentino–Alto Adige’s wine culture has much more in common with that of Austria or Germany than with southern Italy. The signature wines of the region are crisp, aromatic whites from Germanic grapes—gewürztraminer, müller-thurgau, sylvaner, riesling—grown in an environment best-suited to mountaineers, not gondoliers. At their best, these wines taste like they bubbled up from a mountain spring. But on the whole, they don’t get the recognition they deserve.
Within Italy, Trentino–Alto Adige has been eclipsed by Friuli–Venezia Giulia, while in the United States, where aromatic whites are a tough sell to begin with, the whims of fashion have favored just about every other notable white-wine zone in the world: the Loire, Alsace, Germany, and more recently, Friuli, New Zealand, and Austria.
This may be because, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Trentino–Alto Adige is viewed as a low-quality producer. As much as 90 percent of Trentino’s production is confined to large co-ops, among them MezzaCorona and Ca’ Vit, two well-known brands. The Alto Adige also sees about 70 percent of its annual harvest go to co-ops. But it is important to note that the co-ops in Trentino and Alto Adige are not, for the most part, a product of the government-aided boom of the sixties and seventies. In fact, it was in Trentino that many of the earliest wine-growers’ cooperatives were formed in Italy, at the turn of the last century (MezzaCorona was founded in 1904). Unlike many that came later, these co-ops got their impetus from small local farmers, not the government. Some of these collectives—the cantine sociali, or kellerei, of San Michele Appiano (St. Michael Eppan), Santa Maddalena (St. Magdalener), and Colterenzio (Schreckbichl)—are ranked among the best wineries in Italy. They are not well-known in the United States, because their traditional focus was on tart, light-bodied reds for export north. But as their attentions have shifted to whites, the wines from these co-ops are increasingly sought-after.
When you get past an ocean of pinot grigio and lightweight spumante, you’ll find in Trentino and Alto Adige some of the most perfumed, well-structured whites in the world (and occasionally some powerful reds). Throughout the Adige Valley, vines occupy high-altitude sites in mostly gravel soils, amid the interplay of cool breezes from the Alps and warm, drying air off Lake Garda. It’s a similar dynamic to that in Friuli–Venezia Giulia, where breezes off the Adriatic mingle with Alpine currents. But the conditions in Trentino–Alto Adige are more extreme: cooler, higher, and rockier.
Yet as much as Trentino and Alto Adige are physically similar, there are enough cultural (and viticultural) distinctions to merit treating them separately. Magré, home to the Alto Adige’s best-known wine producer, Alois Lageder, is the southernmost German-speaking village in Europe. Roveré della Luna, not ten miles down the road, marks not only the start of the Trentino region but the linguistic shift to Italian. The two provinces share a number of DOC zones and a variety of grapes—including the light red schiava and the omnipresent chardonnay and pinot grigio—but the best wines from each are specialties of their respective areas.
Among the regional specialties are the dry sparklers of Trentino, which, despite being turned out in mass quantities, are made in the classic mèthode champenoise. The category is divided between industrial giants, such as Ca’ Vit, MezzaCorona, and Ferrari, and tiny estates like Balter and Dorigati. They all work with the traditional Champagne grapes, chardonnay and pinot noir, along with smaller percentages of pinot bianco. The Trento DOC zone (not to be confused with the Trentino denomination) was created in 1993 to classify these sparkling wines, which have become one of Trentino’s most important exports.
Despite their commercial success, Trentino sparklers tend to occupy a distant third place behind the dry spumanti of Franciacorta in Lombardy and those of Valdobbiadene in Veneto. The large co-ops dominate the market, and while their gleaming facilities are some of the most technically advanced in Italy, their tendency is to make light, well-priced wines for reliable apéritifs. But they won’t make anyone forget Champagne.
The standout is Ferrari, a privately owned estate that produces 4.5 million bottles a year, making it one of top ten sparkling-wine firms in the world (by way of comparison, the Spanish cava makers Codorníu and Freixenet are much bigger, as is the Champagne house Moët et Chandon). Based in Ravina in an immense, corporate-looking facility overlooking the A22 autostrada, the Ferrari winery is a technical marvel: inside are some twelve million bottles at varying stages of maturation, and most of the rémuage—the process of rotating the bottles so that the spent yeasts from the second fermentation collect in the neck and are disgorged—is carried out in stainless-steel cages called gyropalettes, each of which holds five hundred bottles.
Ferrari was the pioneering producer of sparkling-wine in the Trentino, whose success inspired the Trentino spumante boom of the 1970s. Since the region’s grape choices were long informed by the Austrians, there was plenty of chardonnay and pinot noir to work with when Giulio Ferrari founded his com-pany in 1902. But no one had yet thought to emulate Champagne, at least not on a commercial scale. Ferrari, who had no children, sold out to the Lunelli family years later, but his name lives on in Ferrari’s top wine, a vintage-dated, all-chardonnay sparkler aged a minimum of eight years before it’s release. Finely tuned and delicately aromatic, it’s a minerally, earthy sparkler that rivals some Champagnes in its complexity.
Among the smaller Trentino producers to look for are the aforementioned Balter and Dorigati, both of which build a firm, fine structure into their best wines. They focus mainly on chardonnay, which in the Adige Valley retains its crisp, appley fruit character, rather than becoming blowsy and tropical as it does in warmer regions. The sparklers made from their chardonnays tend to be brisk, palate-cleansing wines.
As for the Alto Adige, spumante production is much more limited, and those wineries choosing to make some don’t always export it. If you happen across an Alto Adige spumante, chances are it will be well worth a try; otherwise you’ll have to head for the Alto Adige’s well-traveled strada del vino (Weinstrasse), where the wines will taste even better with some speck (Tyrolean smoked bacon) and fresh apples.
Apple orchards are almost as common as vines in the Adige Valley, turning the area a spectacular shade of green in summer. The river surges down the middle of the valleys, with orchards and vineyards spreading out on either side and climbing up mountain walls carved long ago by receding glaciers. The orchards often look a lot like vineyards: The tightly spaced trees are pruned very close and supported by canes, each tree devoting its energy to a small quantity of fruit.
When a similar approach is taken in the vineyards, the resulting white wines can taste like biting into a ripe green apple. There’s a burst of tooth-chattering acidity at first, followed by a ripe, cool mouthful of flavor—everything in harmonious balance. The wildcard is aroma, which ranges from clean and flinty to exotically fruity and spicy, since the Adige Valley is home to an unruly array of grapes—from the more subdued pinot grigio, pinot bianco, and chardonnay to the Teutonic temptresses gewürztraminer, müller-thurgau, and sylvaner. Luckily, the labels almost always state the grape variety under the regional heading, one of the great features of the Trentino–Alto Adige DOC system.
The blanket Trentino DOC classification covers nineteen “varietal” wines, ten of which are dry whites. Part of this diversity is cultural, and part is topographical. “One reason we have so many grapes is because we have so many microclimates,” notes Nicola Balter, who not only makes spumante at his farm in Rovereto but also excellent gewürztraminer and sauvignon. “We have vineyards from the valley floor to one thousand meters elevation, so there are a lot of things you can plant.”
Chardonnay, pinot grigio, and to a lesser extent pinot bianco dominate at the lower elevations, since all are durable enough to handle the sometimes intense heat and humidity of the valley floor. Of the three, chardonnay is probably the most interesting, if only because its personality here differs from the rich, alcoholic chardonnay of Australia or California. Though many Trentino producers ferment and age chardonnay in small oak barriques, the majority strive for a fresher, fruitier style of wine, emphasizing its acidity. The better ones have a refreshing minerality, not unlike young Chablis.
But the more interesting Trentino whites are the aromatic varieties: sauvignon blanc (usually called simply sauvignon), which is increasingly popular in both Trentino and Alto Adige; nosiola, Trentino’s one true native white; and müller-thurgau, which, while much more famous in Germany, can be exceptional in both Trentino and Alto Adige.
Sauvignon is planted in a wide range of terrains all over the world, and it often reacts dramatically to changes of scenery. In the Loire Valley of France, it’s described as grassy, flinty, and redolent of “cat’s pee,” whereas in New Zealand it can have an almost petrol-like intensity. Friuli–Venezia Giulia sauvignon takes on a peachy, citrusy character, often leaning toward the potency of New Zealand. In Trentino–Alto Adige, sauvignon is generally more restrained than its Friulian counterparts. The gravel and limestone soils of the Adige Valley are the ideal composition for the grape, and the cooler climate lends balance—something that’s often missing from warm-weather sauvignons, which tend to turn hot from an overdose of alcohol.
Nosiola, grown principally in the Valle dei Laghi just north of Lake Garda, is one of those tart Italian whites that gets more respect in a sweet version—in this case a rare but excellent Vin Santo. But as a dry wine, nosiola is better than average: generally super-tart and light-bodied, it has an appealing lemon-apple flavor and a refreshing mineral finish that in certain situations is just what you need. But since American tastes run to fuller, wood-aged whites, and since nosiola is made in small quantities, it’s not easy to find in the United States. Like falanghina in Campania or vermentino in Liguria, nosiola is a grape that grows in stature when it’s drunk in the place where it’s made. After a day in the Dolomites, and with a bresaola salad drizzled with lemon juice, you’ll think it’s the best white you’ve ever tasted.
Müller-thurgau, meanwhile, takes things in a more exotic direction. The grape is one of the most widely planted in Germany, and has gotten a measure of fame in the United States thanks to the Oregon winery Sokol Blosser. But Trentino may be its ideal habitat. Of all the varieties growing in the Tyrol, müller-thurgau is the one that thrives at the highest altitudes (five hundred meters and up), and is often harvested later than many red varieties. It is at its best in Trentino’s Val di Cembra, a band of hills that runs north of the Avisio River. The most impressive example may be the müller-thurgau made by Pojer & Sandri, a wine that packs so many unusual aromas into one glass that it’s impossible to characterize.
Yet what Pojer & Sandri and other top Trentino müllers share is balance and brightness. Müller-thurgau, like some of the other Germanic whites, can turn oily on the palate when it is very ripe, making it a little tiring to drink. In the upper reaches of Trentino, though, the grapes hold on to their freshness, giving an already aromatic wine a sort of nervous spiciness. Instead of seeming sweet, as many müller-thurgaus do, the Trentino versions retain those exotic aromas—dried apricots, white flowers, wild herbs—without being too heavy.
“Our philosophy is to make wines that are above all aromatic, with a slightly lower grade of alcohol than you might find in other areas,” says Pojer & Sandri’s Fiorentino Sandri, whose winery and distillery look down over the Adige Valley from the heights of Faedo. “We’re not focused on making big, fat, alcoholic whites, one of the reasons being that we can’t. We’re up too high, it’s too cool … our style is dictated in large part by our surroundings.”
The Alto Adige, also, is home to a dizzying array of white grapes grown at often dizzying heights. As in the Trentino, there is an all-encompassing Alto Adige DOC that includes eleven varietal white wines, among them the aforementioned müller-thurgau, chardonnay, sauvignon, and the pinots bianco and grigio. The main differences are which grapes the Alto Adige’s producers choose to focus on, and the more pervasive use of the German language on labels—Alto Adige becomes Südtirol, pinot bianco becomes Weissburgunder, rosato becomes Kretzer, and so on. Sometimes labels mix the two languages, adding to the fun of figuring out just what it is you’re drinking.
It’s hard to know where to start in describing Alto Adige whites. There are innumerable chardonnays, some fermented only in stainless steel and sold young, some fermented or aged in oak to add that telltale layer of vanilla and smoke. Sauvignon, too, may be wood-aged or not, but for the most part producers seem to prefer the latter. The most appealing (and typical) Alto Adige sauvignons are the bright, acidic ones, the ones that shimmer in the glass and tingle in your mouth.
In fact, if your preference is for crisp, clean whites, a good rule of thumb is to look for the most inexpensive bottling from a solid producer—say Alois Lageder, Colterenzio, San Michele Appiano, or Tiefenbrunner—rather than a wine with a vineyard designation or proprietary name attached (the suffix –hof typically refers to a single vineyard, as in Lageder’s “Haberlehof” pinot bianco). Alto Adige producers make a lot of different wines, usually starting with simple, unaged varietals and progressing on to single-vineyard cru wines and special blends, which often employ more oak and are weightier on the palate.
Pinot bianco may be most dramatically affected by this phenomenon. Widely planted in the Alto Adige, it can be a fairly nondescript wine when produced in large quantities. In the past, growers in the region confused it with chardonnay, and at its simplest pinot bianco will be crisp, appley, faintly nutty on the finish, but nothing to write home about. When allowed to ripen fully in a low-yielding vineyard, however, that nutty flavor expands and the wine becomes much richer. Like chardonnay, it responds well to fermenting and aging in oak—the wood flavors complement rather than obscure the natural flavors of the grape.
“Pinot Bianco is the most important white grape in the South Tyrol,” says Hans Terzer, winemaker at the striking Cantina Produttori San Michele Appiano (St. Michael Eppan), one of the region’s most esteemed co-op wineries. “This is partly because it gives a good crop every year, but it’s also because of it’s versatility. The only wines we age in wood are pinot bianco, pinot grigio, and chardonnay, because they are the only ones that can handle it.”
For all of the interest in pinot bianco, however, the spicy gewürztraminer is the more overt symbol of Alto Adige wine culture. It is widely believed that the Alto Adige town of Termeno (Tramin) is the original home of the grape, which is also known by the names traminer and traminer aromatico. Anyone who’s ever tried a gewürztraminer from Alsace knows that it’s an acquired taste. But its pungent aromas and flavors can be great for heavy mountain foods like gnocchi alle erbe (gnocchi with wild herbs) or smoked sausages. The heavy use of cinnamon in Alto Adige cooking seems tailor-made for gewürztraminer, which itself gives off a distinctive aroma of cinnamon—along with rose petals, lychee nuts, and drippingly ripe peaches.
What distinguishes Alto Adige gewürztraminer is the same thing that distinguishes Trentino müller-thurgau: freshness. Producers seem intent on preserving as much of the grape’s natural acid as they can, since without it the sugar-rich gewürztraminer can be fat, syrupy, and overalcoholic.
Also worth seeking out is the steely sylvaner of the Isarco Valley (look for the Val d’Isarco/Eisacktaler DOC designation), of which the tiny Kuen Hof estate and the scenic Abbazia di Novacella are two of the best producers. Less weighty than gewürztraminer but with a similar aromatic kick, sylvaner is yet another shimmering, aromatic white in a place that’s overflowing with them. For a white-wine drinker looking for something different, there’s probably no better place to experiment than the Alto Adige.
“Fifteen, twenty years ago, there weren’t many restaurants in Italy or elsewhere that were willing to pay much for Italian white wines,” says Hans Terzer, reflecting on why Alto Adige whites are just now being discovered. “As that has changed, so have we. There has been a dramatic shift in the types of wines we’re making.”
It comes as a surprise to many people that, even now, there is more red wine than white produced in Trentino–Alto Adige. In the Alto Adige, more than 50 percent of the vineyards are planted to the light red schiava (vernatsch in German), while in Trentino schiava is mixed with another mass-market red, lambrusco. The light, tart wines made from these grapes are not without appeal, but they are a remnant of a bygone era—namely, the days when Trentino–Alto Adige wasn’t northern Italy, but southern Austria. It isn’t necessarily that the region is incapable of producing more full-bodied wines, but that old-time farmers weren’t looking for them. The contadini of the past wanted rustic reds that could be consumed all day long, not for pleasure as much as nourishment.
In fact, it is not at all implausible to think of Trentino–Alto Adige as a red-wine zone. Producers in the Alto Adige are quick to point out that Bolzano, which sits at the convergence of the Isarco (Eisack) and Adige (Etsch) Rivers, is consistently one of the hottest cities in Italy during the summer. “The Adige Valley is all about is topography,” says Alois Lageder, whose ultramodern winery is in the picture-book village of Magré. “The valley floor can actually get very hot and humid, as exemplified by Bolzano, which is like a bowl that collects heat. Once you get up in the hills on either side, the climate changes dramatically.”
What’s most fascinating about the Trentino–Alto Adige winegrowing environment is a phenomenon known as the ora—a warm, drying breeze that originates on Lake Garda and travels up the Adige Valley to Bolzano. Whereas nighttime in the Adige Valley brings cool air from the Alps, the ora is a moderating influence during the day. “It arrives every afternoon like clockwork,” says Nicola Balter, who notes that Riva del Garda, at the tip of Lake Garda in southern Trentino, is warm enough to grow olives (it is, in fact, the northernmost limit of olive production in Italy, and a source of incredibly delicate, perfumed oils).
In recent years, Trentino–Alto Adige vintners have significantly scaled back on schiava and lambrusco in favor of pinot nero (pinot noir), merlot, and especially cabernets sauvignon and franc. These international varieties tend to overshadow native reds such as teroldego (Trentino), marzemino (Trentino), and lagrein (predominantly Alto Adige), which is too bad: The native grapes are often more interesting.
In a nod to the past, the DOC classifications Casteller (which covers most of the province of Trento) and Lago di Caldaro (shared with the Alto Adige) are given to light reds based on schiava and/or lambruscos—simple wines that are for the most part consumed locally. Lago di Caldaro reds are more substantial than lambruscos, and are often a great accompaniment to doughy mountain dishes like canederli (knödel in German). Light and refreshing, they cut through heavy dishes and are also great reds to drink slightly chilled during warm weather.
But the preference these days is for denser, weightier reds, and merlot and cabernet—not just cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc but a cross of the two called simply cabernet—have become increasingly popular. And although merlot and cabernet have a long history in both the Trentino and Alto Adige, interest in them is, for all intents and purposes, a fairly recent phenomenon.
In both the Trentino and the Alto Adige, the dominant system of vine training is called pergola trentina, in which the vines are trained onto high canopies supported by wooden arms. Harvesters can walk under these canopies without ducking. In the past the benefit of the pergola was that it produced massive quantities of grapes (on the valley floor, their height also helped combat humidity, because breezes could pass underneath). A pergola vine’s principal advantage, other than productivity, is that its dense canopy of leaves shades the fruit so that it can ripen more slowly. But with red grapes this isn’t always a benefit. When the vines are not pruned carefully and the crop size is not reduced, red grapes—especially the late-maturing cabernet family—struggle to ripen in the cool climate of Trentino–Alto Adige.
Although there are notable exceptions, a vast number of Trentino–Alto Adige cabernets and merlots have a vegetal aroma and flavor reminiscent of green bell peppers. Producers often say that this is the character of cabernet as grown in the region. But in reality it’s the character of grapes that aren’t fully mature. Many producers have begun to plant vineyards with the Bordeaux guyot system, where the vines are trained closer to the ground, to take advantage of the earth’s heat, and planted very densely, so that the vines produce fewer grapes. Yet for all of the publicity Trentino–Alto Adige cabernets and Bordeaux-style blends have gotten in the press, a majority of them still have a nagging greenness that turns off lots of drinkers. For anyone accustomed to the rich, cassis-scented cabernet sauvignon of the Napa Valley (or Tuscany, for that matter), the more clipped versions from Trentino–Alto Adige can be a letdown.
Producers say that this will change as the region’s viticultural practices evolve. “The problem with cabernet here is not temperature,” explains Roberto Cesconi, a young Trentino vintner whose small family farm in Lavis produces a rich cabernet sauvignon and a richer merlot. “It’s hot enough here. The problem is rain during harvest time. We are almost assured of getting rain at the end of September or beginning of October, so lots of times producers just pick early to avoid it. Unfortunately, unless it’s a really advanced year, the fruit isn’t likely fully mature by the end of September.”
In Trentino, the best-known cabernet sauvignon producer is Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, whose aristocratic Tenuta San Leonardo is at the southern end of the region, in Avio. His San Leonardo Rosso—a Bordeaux-style blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot—debuted in 1982 and has become the benchmark for Trentino (and Alto Adige) cabernets. Gonzaga, a cousin of Mario Incisa della Rocchetta of Tuscany’s Tenuta San Guido, studied enology in France and has tried to bring a French château concept to the Trentino—in spite of the odds.
“It is not easy to grow cabernet and merlot up here,” he says. “In 1989 we lost almost all of our production to rain. We did not produce San Leonardo in ’92 or ’98, either. But when the weather cooperates and the vines are in balance, the cabernet and merlot we have here is elegant and fragrant, and the wines can have a structure to compete with Bordeaux.”
Farther north in Trentino, the region’s most interesting native red, teroldego, is attracting as much attention as the Bordeaux blends—partly because its rarity has made it fashionable. Thought to be a relative of the still rarer marzemino, a grape of Greek origin, teroldego has been famous in the Trentino since the fifteenth century. At present it is more or less confined to the towns of Mezzacorona and Mezzolombardo, an area known as the Campo Rotaliano, which comprises the Teroldego Rotaliano DOC zone.
In the sandy, gravelly, limestone-rich soils of the Noce River basin, teroldego plumps up in the intense heat and, despite its thin skins, produces a deeply colored red with a distinctly tarry, savory, crushed-berry flavor. “It has beautiful color and rich fruit, but sometimes the tannins can be a little drying,” says Elisabetta Foradori, whose family estate in Mezzolombardo is considered the leading producer of Teroldego. “You need to hold on to it for a while or pair it with gamey foods, but the flavor is unique. And you can’t find it anywhere else in the world but here.”
Foradori’s barrique-aged teroldego, and their longer-aged, teroldego-based blend called “Granato” show off the grape at its most dense and fragrant: Deep purple in color, with scents and flavors of crushed blackberries and savory notes of coffee and bitter chocolate. Teroldego has a unique push-pull of sweet and savory flavors with a distinctive tarriness on the finish. (This is much more appealing than it sounds.) Look also for teroldegos by Dorigati, Gaierhof, Roberto Zeni, and Barone de Cles.
Although schiava remains a dominant component of the Alto Adige’s vineyards, most Americans wanting to try it will have to head to Bolzano. American importers avoid schiava-based reds, which include those with the DOC names Lago di Caldaro/Kalterersee, Santa Maddalena/St. Magdalener, Colli di Bolzano/Bozner Leiten and Meranese di Collina/Meraner Hugel. Sipping a bottle of Kalterersee or St. Magdalener with a plate of Wiener schnitzel in an Alto Adige Gasthaus is a perfectly natural thing to do, and on occasion the wines can be reminiscent of light, fragrant pinot noirs. But on the whole, schiava-based wines remain resolutely local.
More available are the Alto Adige’s cabernet sauvignons and merlots, especially those of Castello Schwanburg, Peter Dipoli, Baron Widmann, Alois Lageder, and most of the top co-ops, including Colterenzio, San Michele Appiano, and Cornaiano/Girlan. Yet despite the unprecedented popularity of these wines, the “international” grape that seems best-suited to the region is pinot nero (pinot noir). The more delicate pinot nero grape is better adapted to the altitudes and climate of the Adige Valley, and many of the above-named producers have had success with the variety—in vineyards on the east side of the river in particular. The steep, terraced slopes to the right of the Adige capture only the afternoon sun, allowing the heat-sensitive pinot nero to develop slowly and evenly.
“More so than cabernet or merlot, pinot nero is right for this area,” says Hans Terzer of Cantina San Michele Appiano, whose “Sanct Valentin” Alto Adige pinot nero is one of the best pinot noirs available in Italy. “Everything that pinot nero likes, we have: high-altitude vineyards, good exposure to the sun, and, most especially, good fluctuations in temperature between the day and the night. This last part is critical because it helps preserve the aroma of pinot nero, which is its best feature.”
Among the native grapes, the Alto Adige has its own dark red that thrives in the sandy soils of the plains: lagrein, which is made not only as a dark, dry red (called scuro or Dunkel) but also as a spicy, fragrant, deeply flavorful rosé (called rosato or Kretzer). The durable lagrein grape needs intense heat to mature, making it a perfect choice for the alluvial Bolzano basin. It is considered at its best from vineyards near the village of Gries, where the winery at the Benedictine monastery Muri-Gries is one of the best lagrein producers.
Like the Trentino’s teroldego, Alto Adige lagrein is dense and dark to look at, and is generally deeply flavored—if a little spicy and clipped on the finish. In the hardcover edition of this book we gave lagrein unjustly short shrift; it is undoubtedly a grape that has come on strong in recent years, with producers such as Cantina Terlano, Cantina Produttori Santa Maddalena, and Alois Lageder making very distinguished versions. Lagrein has an intriguing balance of sweet and savory elements—a combination of dark, coffee-ground flavors, a slight vegetal edge, and a mass of dark fruit that is sometimes reminiscent of cabernet franc, particularly as expressed in a full-bodied Chinon. Lagrein is a very meaty wine, and a rich braise or stew is a good way to match its inky intensity and soften its tannic edge. Do not miss the opportunity to try this funky mountain red.
As in so many regions, sweet wines in Trentino–Alto Adige tend to be afterthoughts and are generally produced in small quantities. Yet like so many dessert wines, they can be total revelations.
In the Adige Valley, there are three very interesting options: the gold-amber Vin Santo from the Valle dei Laghi region in Trentino, which is made from nosiola grapes; late-harvest moscato giallo or goldmuskateller from both provinces; and the rarer but delicious moscato rosa, or rosenmuskateller, also from both provinces.
The term vino santo (holy wine) prompts most wine drinkers to think of Tuscany. But the northern tip of Lake Garda is home to a small community of artisan Vin Santo producers. The Valle dei Laghi, running north from Riva del Garda toward Trento, takes best advantage of the warming ora breezes. Like Tuscan Vin Santo, the Trentino version is made using grapes that are hung to dry for three to six months, after which they are fermented and aged in small wood barrels for a minimum of three years. In essence, the Valle dei Laghi is the only part of Trentino–Alto Adige that’s dry enough in the winter months for the appassimento to proceed without the grapes rotting. Only a handful of Trentino producers still make Vin Santo, including the tiny producers F.lli Pisoni and Gino Pedrotti and the large co-ops of Ca’ Vit and Pravis, but even the latter don’t travel too far away from home.
From the deeply colored moscato giallo, which can also be made into a refreshing, cidery dry wine, producers make honeyed sweet wines, by either leaving the grapes on the vine to become superripe (vendemmia tardiva) or by picking and then drying them to concentrate their sugars (appassimento, or passito). Both giallo and rosa are members of the same moscato family, one of the largest and most widespread in Italy. In Trentino–Alto Adige, the giallo makes a yellow-gold sweet wine with sappy, peachy flavors reminiscent of German auslesen, while the rosa becomes an exotic, spicy pink wine with aromas and flavors of rosewater and cinnamon. Some fantastic goldmuskatellers are available in the U.S. market, including a nectar from the tiny Thurnhof winery called “Passaurum.” As for moscato rosa, you can find great examples from Zeni and Abbazia di Novacella.
PROVINCES: Trentino: Trento (TN). Alto Adige: Bolzano (BZ)
CAPITALS: Trentino: Trento. Alto Adige: Bolzano
KEY WINE TOWNS: Trentino: Avio, Faedo, Lavis, Mezzacorona, Mezzolombardo, Rovereto, Trento. Alto Adige: Appiano (Eppan), Bolzano (Bozen), Bressanone (Brixen), Caldaro (Kaltern), Cornaiano (Girlan), Magrè (Margreid), Termeno (Tramin)
TOTAL VINEYARD AREA*: Combined:13,821 hectares, or 34,152 acres. Rank: 15th.
TOTAL WINE PRODUCTION*: Combined: 1,177,000 hectoliters, or 31,096,340 gallons (12th); 46% white, 54% red
DOC WINE PRODUCED*: Combined: 77.6% (1st)
SPECIALTY FOODS: speck (Tyrolean smoked bacon); bresaola (air-dried beef); rennet apples; Asiago cheese; strangaolopreti (“priest-choker” gnocchi of Trentino); canederli, or Knödel (bread-and-flour dumplings of Alto Adige, often mixed with chopped speck or other meats, cheeses, and herbs).
*2000 figures. Rankings out of twenty regions total (Trentino–Alto Adige counted as one). Source: Istituto Statistica Mercati Agro-Alimentari (ISMEA), Rome.
GEWÜRZTRAMINER: May have originated in the Alto Adige town of Termeno (Tramin). Goes by the names traminer and traminer aromatico and is grown in both the Trentino and Alto Adige.
PINOT BIANCO: Called pinot blanc in French, and of French origin, this grape is widely planted in Italy, though in the past it was confused with chardonnay. An especially important variety in Alto Adige.
CHARDONNAY: Trentino’s spumante boom in the sixties and seventies led to more widespread planting; it is now one of Trentino–Alto Adige’s (and Italy’s) most diffuse.
SYLVANER: Most dense in the Isarco Valley of the Alto Adige, where it probably arrived by way of Germany.
MÜLLER-THURGAU: A cross of riesling and sylvaner, born at Germany’s Geisenheim Research Institute and now fairly widespread in northern Italy. Trentino’s Val di Cembra is a favored position for the grape, which thrives at high altitudes.
PINOT GRIGIO: The French pinot gris (so named for the grayish color of ripe grapes). When fully ripe it can be rich and potent, but most producers opt for thin, high-acid versions.
OTHER NOTEWORTHY WHITES: NOSIOLA, a tart native of Trentino; SAUVIGNON, the French sauv-ignon blanc, increasingly popular in northern Italy; MOSCATO GIALLO, part of one of the world’s largest grape families, but a distinct and distinctive sub-variety of the Trentino–Alto Adige.
SCHIAVA (VERNATSCH): Still the most widely planted grape of any type in Trentino–Alto Adige. Thought to be of Slavic or German origin. A light red favored in Austria and southern Germany.
LAGREIN: One theory is that it originated along the Lagarina River of Trentino, thus the name; now thrives in the sandy, alluvial soils around Bolzano. Tannic and spicy, it is also grown in Trentino’s Campo Rotaliano plain, near Mezzacorona.
TEROLDEGO: Possibly a relative of marzemino, but better regarded, it is mostly confined to the Campo Rotaliano plain of northern Trentino, at the confluence of the Noce and Adige rivers.
MARZEMINO: A specialty of the Trentino, particularly the area around Isera, where it produces grapey, plump wines. Thought by some to have been brought by the Greeks via Venice and the Adige River.
PINOT NERO (PINOT NOIR): Increasingly popular French variety thrives at higher altitudes and can produce fruity, perfumed reds.
CABERNET SAUVIGNON: Also cabernet franc, and “cabernet” cross of franc-sauvignon. Thought to have arrived in Italy in the early 1800s, and widely planted both before and especially after phylloxera hit at the turn of the last century.
MERLOT: Easy-to-grow Bordeaux native now one of the most-planted reds in Italy.
OTHER NOTABLES: MOSCATO ROSA, a native variety used in interesting sweet rosés.
Because of their high natural acidity, the region’s whites will hold up to some time in the bottle, but generally speaking, these are wines to drink between one and three years from the vintage date. It would certainly be worth trying some whites from the mid- to late-nineties vintages cited on the following pages, but these citations are more useful for Trentino–Alto Adige reds. Given the cool climate and extreme conditions of the South Tyrol, reds tend to be very vintage-sensitive. You’ll find, however, that a top-quality teroldego or lagrein from a good vintage can be very distinctive. Top recent years for whites include 1997, ’99, ’00, ’01, and ’04; for reds, ’96, ’97, ’99, ’00, ’01, and ’04. Years to avoid for reds include ’92 and ’98, when many producers didn’t even make their reds.
Both Trentino and Alto Adige are relatively unexplored by American wine wanderers, despite the fact that the wineries in the region are especially well equipped for tourism. In the Alto Adige especially, there is a well-marked strada del vino (Weinstrasse in German) that runs from Salorno all the way to Bolzano, through the picturesque wine villages of Magré, Tramin, Caldaro, and Appiano, to name a few. Small agriturismo (agro-tourism) lodges are found throughout both the Trentino and the Alto Adige, and many of the wineries have shops and restaurants attached where you can sample the wines and purchase products. The nearby Dolomites provide plenty of hiking and skiing options, but for the true wine hound there are a number of well-marked trails along the strada del vino that take you right through some of the region’s top vineyards, with stops along the way at wineries for a quick snack or tour. For those who love both the outdoors and wine, Trentino–Alto Adige is hard to beat. Contact the Bolzano Chamber of Commerce for more information on touring the Alto Adige (0471-94-55-11; fax: 0471-94-56-20). In Trentino, contact Vino e Turismo in Lavis (0461-24-63-15; fax: 0461-24-23-40).
MezzaCorona Trento Rotari Brut “Arte Italiana,” $
Ferrari “Giulio Ferrari,” $$
Here are two sparkling wines to file under the category of Pleasant Surprises. Lean, firm, and fine, they are both lightweight but well-structured sparklers made in the Champagne method, excellent as apéritifs but with enough acid and minerality to stand up to food. In the “Giulio Ferrari” in particular, you’ll find a depth of flavor and firmness of structure to rival that of a good Champagne. Relatively speaking, these wines are a steal.
CP San Michele Appiano (St. Michael Eppan) Alto Adige Pinot Bianco “Schulthauser,” $
Elena Walch Alto Adige Pinot Bianco “Kastelaz,” $
Although both of these wines are high in natural acidity, they have a creaminess of texture and slightly nutty flavors to identify them as pinot biancos. Aromas of white flowers and green melon are followed by flavors of minerals and raw almonds, with an aftertaste reminiscent of green apple skin. Although they are generally lighter-bodied than pinot grigios, pinot biancos tend to be more aromatic and spicy. You might play up the almondy notes in the wine by pairing it with an amandine-style fish preparation.
Ca’ Vit Pinot Grigio, $
Franz Haas “Kris” Alto Adige Pinot Grigio, $
Elena Walch Alto Adige Pinot Grigio “Castel Ringberg,” $
Pinot grigio is one of the most highly variable grapes in Italy, as these three wines demonstrate. Starting with the Ca’ Vit and finishing with Elena Walch’s “Castel Ringberg,” you’ll see that the style spectrum runs from delicately aromatic and chalky on the palate to more round, pear-appley, and unctuous. As with pinot bianco, there’s a flinty minerality to pinot grigio that tickles the palate and gets the salivary glands working. But in the Franz Haas and Elena Walch wines in particular, there’s also a plump layer of fruit flavor that coats the tongue. Pinot grigio is not assertively aromatic, but rather a wine that expresses itself in bocca (in the mouth), and in the case of these Alto Adige versions, there’s a cool, dewy, spring-water quality to each that evokes the mountain valleys from which they come. With a salad of rennet apples, cubed cheese, and maybe a little speck or bresaola, dressed with lemon juice and oil, there’s no more elemental choice.
Tiefenbrunner Alto Adige GewÜrztraminer, $
Colterenzio Alto Adige Gewürztraminer “Cornell,” $$
Exotic aromas of peach, mandarin orange, white flowers, lychee, and cinnamon leap from the glass when sampling these wines, leading the taster to believe that the wines will be sweet. Yet a distinguishing feature of Alto Adige gewürz is that while it is round and unctuous across the palate (as evidenced especially by the “Cornell” wine), it finishes with a drying tingle of acidity. Sometimes gewürztraminer can be a little oily and cloying, but these wines have a sense of balance and proportion. Exotic, yes. Cloying, no. They are great with gnocchi or filled pastas in slightly sweet sauces incorporating cinnamon or cumin.
Graziano Fontana Müller-Thurgau di Faedo, $
Pojer & Sandri Trentino Müller-Thurgau, $
Müller-thurgau bears some aromatic similarity to gewürztraminer, although it tends to exhibit more herbal notes. These wines give off scents of apricot and peach, but then there are also hints of sage and thyme. Where gewürztraminer is floral and fruity, müller-thurgau is slightly more spicy and savory, a little bigger and brassier and, generally speaking, a little oilier and richer on the palate. Try these crisp, forceful whites with a classic gnocchi alle erbe (gnocchi with mountain herbs) for a true taste of the hills of Trentino.
Foradori Teroldego Rotaliano, $
Roberto Zeni Teroldego Rotaliano, $$
Deeply colorful—almost black, in fact—and deeply flavorful, teroldego is something of an anomaly in a region known mostly for lighter-style reds. The thick skins of the teroldego grape gives its wines their deep purple hues, and the flavors, too, might be described as “purple”: think of Welch’s grape jelly, only with a good dose of road tar and coffee grounds (that may not sound too appetizing, but it is). If there’s a knock on these full-flavored wines is that they are a little “short”—their flavors don’t persist very long after you’ve swallowed the wine, but rather seem abbreviated by a somewhat drying blast of tannin. They need a good piece of mountain cheese or maybe some gulasch to absorb this tannic bite.
CP Santa Maddalena Alto Adige Lagrein “Perlhof,” $–$$
Muri-Gries Alto Adige Lagrein, $$
Franz Gojer Alto Adige Lagrein Riserva, $$
One thing that these reds share is a savory, spicy, herbal flavor reminiscent of tobacco leaves. They vary in their amounts of red fruit extract on the palate, but there’s an earthiness to each that distinguishes them. This push-pull of sweet and savory lends the wines a singular personality. Though not for everyone, these funky reds are great accompaniments to hearty mountain stews and braises.
CP San Michele Appiano (St. Michael Eppan) Alto Adige Pinot Nero “Sanct Valentin,” $
Hofstätter Alto Adige Pinot Nero “St. Urbano,” $$$
Good pinot noir—that is, pinot noir that tastes like pinot noir—is not easy to find in Italy. But as these two wines demonstrate, there are areas of Italy with an aptitude for this notoriously difficult variety. In the “Sanct Valentin” wine, the classic pinot noir aroma of red cherries and a touch of woodsy smoke wafts up from the glass like a perfume. The Hofstätter has a similarly foresty, wild-berry aroma, but with a little more density of fruit concentration. These reds are extremely versatile with food, with heady aromas and flavors balanced by bright acidity and soft tannins. When you’re in the mood for a more delicate, aromatic red, these are great choices.
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DOCG
18 Sforzato di Valtellina
DOC
