In the Vinschgau: Small Growers, New Heights

Trink Magazine | With forests, glaciers, and vineyards that soar above 1,300 elevation, the Vinschgau remains a bastion of true cool climate wines. By Valerie Kathawala
Trink Magazine | With forests, glaciers, and vineyards that soar above 1,300 elevation, the Vinschgau remains a bastion of true cool climate wines. By Valerie Kathawala
Writer, Editor, Publisher
Valerie Kathawala specializes in the wines of Germany, Austria, South Tyrol, and Switzerland, as well as those closer to her home in New York City. Her work appears in the pages of Noble Rot, Full Pour, SevenFifty Daily, Meininger’s Wine Business International, Pipette, Glug, Pellicle, and a number of other tolerant publications.
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…...
Südtirol-Alto Adige winegrowing has already exerted tremendous energy in re-inventing itself. But as has become ever clearer, that was only step one. The second is yet to come.
Riesling is Poland's second most popular grape. Its lure is proving irresistible not only in Zielona Góra and Lower Silesia but also the cooler Lublin region in eastern Poland.
The dark wit of Berlin. Dangerously low water levels in the Rhine River. Black bread. Germany does trocken like few others. And then there’s the wine. Despite its reputation as the land of Blue Nun, more than 60 percent of the wines made in Germany are dry. And within that 60 percent, there are discernible levels of dry, drier, and driest. So dry, in fact, that there’s a strangely specific word for it. (Of course there’s a word. It’s Germany. There’s always a word.) Furztrocken. Fart Dry. Literally. As difficult to grasp as I find a term like feinherb, it’s Kinderspiel when compared to furztrocken. Then again, mindset…...
The view from the Gasthaus patio across the South Tyrolean valley is framed by lush vegetation and floral splendor. Three weeks ahead of schedule, nature has already reached peak blossom and seems literally bursting with fertility. Wherever you look, all that can grow, does. Bees buzz, butterflies flutter, and the inn is teeming long before even the first wave of spring tourists. The regional charcuterie board arrives with a bottle of Gewürztraminer, amplifying the unrelenting sensory euphoria of flowers, landscape, sunshine, and speck. Skeptics are the ones missing out because Gewürztraminer over the Alps has never been better. Back in Germany, where Gewürztraminer’s reputation…...
Digging deep with six vintages of the mine-aged iconic Gewürtztraminer Epokale from Cantina Tramin.
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