One of several Michelin-starred chefs cooking on the slopes: Alessandro Dal Degan at the Gourmet Skisafari, Alta Badia. Photo Credit: Manuel Glira
At 2,010 meters above sea level, the first thing that changes is your breathing. The second is your appetite. By the time you are standing outside a mountain hut with a glass of Blauburgunder in hand, something else has shifted too. The wine tastes different up here. In December, I went to Alta Badia, a small, jagged pocket of Südtirol-Alto Adige, with skis, a notebook, and a question. Nestled among the villages of San Cassiano, La Villa, Corvara, and the Campolongo Pass, the region is defined by its verticality, snow, and fine cuisine. Every year, as the ski season starts,…
Małgorzata Partyka began writing about wine in 2015. The scientific experience gained from her PhD in human molecular biology helped her write two articles that were published in the Jancis Robinson Wine Writing Competitions of 2017 and 2020. Today, she writes about wine and food for Polish online and print magazines. She lives in Warsaw with her partner and young son.
Trink Magazine | St. Magdalener represents perhaps the most powerful and structured of the many Vernatsch expressions in Alto Adige and constitutes an important part of the region’s identity. By Simon Staffler
My first, late spring 2018 visit with Marlies and Martin Abraham in their cellar on the edge of Eppan-Appiano proved an inspirational personal discovery. A young couple leaves behind former professions to follow a vinicultural dream of activism in the vineyard and minimalism in the cellar, becoming the first to vinify and bottle wine from the vineyards they have inherited: In itself, that story is nowadays (thankfully) far from unusual. But in Südtirol-Alto Adige, it’s an audacious exception. Moreover, I was amazed by how distinctly delicious were Abrahams’ interpretations of each among the four grape varieties they chose to champion, especially considering…...
Lunar New Year (aka Spring Festival, or Guo Nian in Mandarin) is arguably the most important holiday for people of Chinese heritage — especially in Taiwan, where I grew up. It’s been my favorite since I was a kid. Now, living in Brooklyn, I recall that a few days before the New Year every household starts to “sweep the dust” to banish bad luck, erase unhelpful habits, and create positive new ones. On the day before New Year’s Eve (a holiday we call Little New Year’s Eve), we will take down the old Spring Festival couplets and replace them with fresh verses. On New…...
A tiny pilot project created by immigrants for immigrants is taking root in the small wineries of Alto Adige-Südtirol. V.I.T.E. — Viticulture Integration Training Empowerment — is an innovative partnership that grew out of shared need. A demographic shift in this Alpine corner of northern Italy is bringing with it a shortage of skilled vineyard workers. Where grandparents and cousins once pitched in, trained immigrants from around the world may begin to take up that role. According to organizers, the beauty of this public-private approach to addressing the gap between labor supply and demand is that it also fosters understanding…...
In the heart of Alto Adige-Südtirol, infinite green rows of vines crown the chestnut-brown roofs of Neustift Abbey. In this fairytale-like northern Italian valley, German and Italian coexist in mutual synchrony, a vivid reminder of a not-so-distant past when this was part of the Austrian Empire. The fortified ensemble houses a monastery, boarding school, museum, and winery within its Romanesque, Baroque, and Rococo walls. Wine has been made using grapes of the region here for the last nine centuries, all under the vigilance of Augustinian canons. Grüner Veltliner, Kerner, and Sylvaner reflect the terroir, proudly representing the abbey in local…...
It starts with the soil. “I am passionate about the microbial world under our feet, and the key role it plays in the vine’s adaptation to climate change,” says agronomist Martina Broggio, a sustainable viticulture consultant in northern Italy, Tuscany, Marche, and Puglia. Since 2018, Broggio has been helping wineries in Alto Adige move in a regenerative direction. Regenerative Viticulture (RV) requires a significant paradigm shift within vineyard management, where soil is understood as a living environment rather than as a container for growing grapes. It envisions an ecosystem in which all parts of the vineyard, including roots and bacteria,…...
