alto adige wine clip summary may 2015
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Date: 5/15/2015 Print Audience: 952,788 Online Audience: 3,612,130 Page Count: 1/3
Food & Wine
Date: 5/15/2015 Print Audience: 952,788 Online Audience: 3,612,130 Page Count: 2/3
Food & Wine
Date: 5/15/2015 Print Audience: 952,788 Online Audience: 3,612,130 Page Count: 3/3
Food & Wine
Date: 5/15/2015 Online Audience: 18,926 Page Count: 1/4
Grape Collective
The collaborative spirit is much lauded in many fields – let’s all get together to build a barn/clean up
these wetlands/organize a surprise party for Dad. At the same time, the cliché "no committee ever
wrote a novel” stands as a reminder that too many cooks, well, tend to result in a broth of the
lowest common denominator. And that’s often the view taken of wine cooperatives... but there are
exceptions. In fact, one small corner of Italy is chock full of them: Alto Adige.
Prior to World War I, the area had been part of Austria, and the change in nationality (and later the
Great Depression) was devastating for the region’s economy. Cooperatives helped small farmers
find a home for their grapes. Now a dozen or so cooperatives make up 70% of the region’s
production; most having begun a century or so ago, when the aforementioned series of economic
crises left farmers struggling to find buyers for their grapes.
These farmers – many with just an acre or two of vines, and most lacking professional winemaking
equipment to vinify the grapes on their own — bring their grapes to the co-op’s winery, which pays
the grower and then makes and sells the wine. The farmers aren’t selling their grapes, though;
they’re receiving their dividends for their contributions to the harvest. The growers co-own the
cooperative. This is the key difference between them and a negoçiant, who buys grapes from
farmers and then makes and sells the wine themselves.
Date: 5/15/2015 Online Audience: 18,926 Page Count: 2/4
Grape Collective
And that means that traditionally, all grapes
were equal. Farmers were paid based on
volume, and there was no motivation to
grow better grapes. Actually, quite the
opposite. Many consider reducing yields
means better quality, but compensation
based on volume favors the opposite. But
everyone knew that some grapes were
more equal than others.
In the 1980s, all that began to change for
Alto Adige. The more observant realized
that producing cheap bulk wine was much
easier elsewhere in Italy; for example, Alto
Adige’s vineyards are mostly hillsides (as
the floor of the valley is devoted largely to
apples) and don’t lend themselves to
machine harvesting and other economies
of scale they way more southerly Italian
regions like the Veneto do. So if the future
of bulk wine lay further south, Alto Adige
would have to shoot for quality. “The
system changed to paying on quality
instead of on volume,” says Wolfgang
Klotz, Marketing and Sales Director at
Cantina Tramin. “Now yields [the amount of
grapes harvested per acre] are something
we don’t talk about.”
How is this quality enforced? For one thing, members at most Alto Adige cooperatives could no
longer pick and choose. It used to be that many would save the best grapes for their own wines,
and only sell their lesser grapes to the co-op. But in 1988, Cantina Bolzano started making
changes. These days the winemaker and agronomist visit the vineyards during the growing
season, look over the grapes as they arrive at harvest, and check them for their levels of sugar
and acidity at the winery.
Terroir (if one feels okay using a French term to talk about Italian wines from a region where
everybody speaks German) is important, too. At Cantina Tramin, “best vineyards get a premium,
based on the age of vines and how they work the vines.” Eighty percent of their member
vineyards go into their “Classic” series; only the remaining plots qualify for their “Cru," or single
vineyard wines. Those vineyards are often harvested later, which puts them at risk for rot,
damage from rain, or raisinating (which reduces volume). To protect the farmer from loss, the
Date: 5/15/2015 Online Audience: 18,926 Page Count: 3/4
Grape Collective
cooperative guarantees a minimum payment so the grower won’t feel pressured to harvest earlier,
before optimum ripeness.
Not every grower was sure they wanted to change, though. Klotz says they had to start with a
small group of member farmers and then expand from there. At Cantina Bolzano the winery
organizes vineyard visits so farmers can see how others work the same grape varieties.
Winemaker Klaus Sparer says it not only reassures members that the changes work, it even
inspires them to think competitively – they start to take pride in their vines and want their grapes to
be better than those of their peers. The winery also conducts tastings for their growers, who then
get to taste their own wines alongside their competition from all around the world, so they can see
what needs to be achieved in the market.
Both Cantina Bolzano and Cantina Tramin are associated with particular grape varieties, even
though they make a wide range, and are named for the towns they’re based in. As it happens, the
town of Tramin also lent its name to the grape Gewurztraminer, which does very well in Alto Adige,
yielding a wine less opulent and heavy than most Alsace renditions. (It’s Alto Adige’s most
popularity grape in the rest of Italy, but the locals actually favor Pinot Bianco!) The Bolzano area,
on the other hand, is the warmest microclimate in Alto Adige (As a backpacking college student I
made the mistake of heading there when a heatwave was making southern Italy unpleasant; it
didn’t help.). That warmth makes it the best place for Lagrein, an indigenous variety, dark-fruited
and dense, without being heavy.
Date: 5/15/2015 Online Audience: 18,926 Page Count: 4/4
Grape Collective
Not every Alto Adige cooperative has such obvious “flagship” varieties, but since they tend to be
based town-by-town, they offer a wonderful tour of the region: Cantina Valle Isarco, northeast from
Bolzano where it’s cooler and the Riesling crosses Kerner, Sylvaner, and Müller Thurgau thrive;
Cantinas Terlano and Andrian, in the other direction, where more sun exposure means more red
wines, at least at the lower elevations, or the younger Cantina Colterenzio, founded in 1960 by 28
members and since grown to almost 300. As a region, Alto Adige’s numerous microclimates mean
Cabernet, Chardonnay, and other “international” varieties of many sorts exist cheek-by-jowl
alongside more Germanic varieties. What do they share in common? “There’s nowhere else in the
world where the margin between grape prices and bottle price is so small,” says Klotz.
Good cooperatives are good values.
Date: 5/18/2015 Print Audience: 142,682 Online Audience: 200,558 Page Count: 1/1
Los Angeles Magazine
The paradigm is shifting in the wine world. The
old guard who’ve long influenced our drinking
habits (and resisted change in the industry) is
giving way to a modern movement—a new
wave of outspoken personalities, i.e. the social
sommeliers, who champion iconoclastic
winemakers, emerging regions, and novel
approaches.
These days, when the competition for space on
wine lists is so fierce, new styles of traditional
varietal wines are becoming the norm. Grapes
like Grüner Veltliner, Riesling and Albariño are
stealing the spotlight, and radical new
techniques—from anfora-aged, skin-fermented
whites to wines aged in concrete eggs—make
for compelling (and sellable) narratives.
Additionally, the rise of the social sommelier has
helped to catapult an esoteric range of natural,
organic, and biodynamic wines from boutique
producers in the U.S. and smaller countries,
including Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and even
Lebanon, while also ushering in a young,
rebellious set of winemakers from countries like
Italy and France, who have thrown off the
gloves of tradition to create some of the most
exciting wines in recent memory.
Here’s what some of L.A.’s new guard has to
say about what you’ll be seeing on wine lists
(and drinking more of) in 2016 and beyond.
Kellerei Bozen-Cantina Bolzano 2014
Weissburgunder, Trentino-Alto Adige,
Italy, $13
George Pitsironis, wine director, Union
Restaurant: “Italy has so much to offer in
terms of whites that are indigenous
varieties and food-friendly. I have seen a
wonderful adventurous spirit from guests
open to trying fun Italian whites that are
not Pinot Grigio—varieties like
Verdicchio, Vernaccia, Pecorino, Fiano.
This wine which comes from the Alto
Adige region where most of the Pinot
Grigio is produced, yet a wine like this
Weissburgunder (Pinot Bianco) is what
the locals drink on tap for themselves.”
Date: 5/19/2015 Print Audience: 524,791 Online Audience: 699,047 Page Count: 1/1
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Date: 5/27/2015 Print Audience: 4,928 Online Audience: 48,930 Page Count: 1/1
Beverage Media – Metro New York