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,…
Sara Emilia Nässén is a Swedish wine writer whose love for wine blossomed during several expatriations in Italy. She holds a Master degree in Wine Culture, Communication and Management from the Slow Food University UNISG (Università di Scienze Gastronomiche) in Piedmont. Before immersing herself into the world of wine, she worked as an architecture librarian. She currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden, where she writes for several online and print journals.
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…...
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
Archetype, a Portland, Oregon-based import start-up, is focused on Alpine wines. They are refining consumer's understanding of the category and building community near and far.
The wine stood on a high shelf, past tense very much called for, because moments after the waitress leapt for it — leapt, did not get a stool, did not ask for help, leapt because she once could — the bottle wobbled and began to fall. On earth, objects plummet at a pace of 9.8 meters per second squared, which means this bottle will reach the ground approximately two-thirds of a second after it begins its journey. But as any oenophile knows, wine makes a moment last — in this case, long enough to share exactly 15 things about this…...
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…...
