South Tyrol – feinherb to sweet


Around 70% of South Tyrolean wines are produced by cooperatives, which belong to the pioneers of quality development. At this year’s wine trip to South Tyrol, the Winery Bolzano was on our visit program. The new construction of the winery has not only caused a stir architecturally. With around 40 million €, this is the most expensive investment in the wine sector in South Tyrol so far. 220 members of the cooperative are growing vines around Bolzano and manage about 350 hectares of vineyards, which are between 200 and 900 meters altitude. The winery is well known for its Lagrein and St. Magdalener wines, but it also offers many … Read more ...

Apulian surprise – Moscato di Trani

Puglia, which competes against Sicily for the second largest wine-producing region in Italy, is known for its high yields in viticulture, even in DOC areas. There are nearly a dozen sweet types of wine in Puglia, including the sweet specimen of the otherwise dry Apulian Primitivo di Manduria and, almost inevitably in Italy, a sweet Moscato.

The tasted wine, the Moscato di Trani DOC Piani di Tufara 2015 from the winery Rivera is made from Moscato Reale, as Moscato Bianco (Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains) is called in Apulia. The grapes grow on tufa soils in the Murgia near Castel Monte, a castle of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II, not … Read more ...

Muffato della Sala – Italian Sauternes?

At our Italian evening Hans and I agreed in the judgment of the Muffato della Sala 2011 by Castello della Sala: In the nose like Sauternes, on the palate somehow stronger, the sweetness a bit too noticeable, there are some similarities with Passito, nevertheless no Passito – in short one very good, original Italian sweet wine.

The Castello della Sala, a winery owned by the Antinori family, is located near Orvieto. There, on soils infused with fossils, loamy, from sedimentary and volcanic origin, the vines for the muffato flourish. The Muffato is made from 60% Sauvignon Blanc, the remaining 40% comes from Grechetto, Semillon, Traminer and Riesling. Classified … Read more ...

Sicilian Notissimo

The baroque splendor of Noto is known beyond the borders of Sicily. Less known, however, is the Moscato di Noto from the variety Moscato Bianco pressed. The variety is quite common in Italian sweet wines. The Moscato di Noto is often sweet – but it is also traded in a dry version. In the regulations of the DOC Noto the sweetness of the wine is not determined, only aromatic and varietal should the Moscato di Noto be.
Exactly to the letter of the DOC regulations, however, the other three variants of the Moscato di Noto must be. The Moscato di Noto Spumante must have more than 50 grams of residual … Read more ...

Ruché Passito di Castagnole Monferrato

Vineyards in  Monferrato © pixabay.com

Since 2010 the Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato has a separate DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) although the grape variety, so to speak, was rediscoveredonly in the 1970s in Piedmont. Its then discoverer, Father Don Giacomo Cauda, ​​was so taken with the quality, body, aromas, flavors and aromas of the wines of his ten rows of ruché vines that he not only cultivated more of this variety, but even to inspire winemaker to increase plantings of it. Already in 1987 there was the DOC status, which at that time as well as today and also in case of the DOCG

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Cashmere from Tramin’s limestone

Wine cellar tour with Elena Walch

One third of the South Tyrolean winegrowing areas can be found in the Unterland winegrowing zone, which is the largest of the seven winegrowing areas in South Tyrol. The region Unterland is also the warmest and extends from Altenburg, about 5 km north of Tramin, along the Adige River to the Salurner Klause, the German-Italian language border. The Unterland also has the highest vineyards in South Tyrol. At an altitude of 1,000 m, the grapes for a well-known dry wine from South Tyrol, Feldmarschall von Fenner, ripen on the Fennberg near Kurtatsch. The proximity to Lake Garda with its mild climatic

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Via dei sapori: Friulian Picolit

The Consorzio Friuli Venezia Giulia Via dei Sapori had invited to trie Friulan products from the kitchen and the cellar. On 13 February this year, seven restaurateurs, twenty winegrowers and eleven delicatessen producers presented local specialties from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in Munich. An excellent opportunity to introduce the outstanding products, the excellent, innovative and at the same time traditional cuisine as well as the variety of the very good Friulian wines to a wider audience. The offer, such as San Daniele ham, matured Montasio cheese, zabaione ice cream, sepia tagliatelle with young artichokes or pumpkin flan with cod and freshly passed tomatoes showed that the Friulan cuisine, coined … Read more ...

Marsala – fruity sweetness from Sicily

Marsala is available as both dry and sweet wine. Sweet representatives of the Marsala can be found in the versions Fine, Superiore and Superiore Riserva, because these types are available in both secco and semisecco as well as dolce. We tasted a Fino Rubino and a Superiore Riserva Oro, both of the dolce type, which means a residual sugar content of more than 100 grams per liter.
Since 1880 there are, located in the province of Trapani, Cantine Pellegrino, whose vineyards are planted mainly with local varieties such as Grillo, Catarratto, Inzolia, Malvasia Bianca, Nero d’Avola and Zibibo (Muscat Read more ...

Vin Santo – holy wine?

There is Vin Santo not only in Tuscany, but also in Umbria, Emilia Romagna, Veneto and Trentino. However, the first Vin Santo in Italy is said to originate from Tuscany – a wine of legendary origin. There are several different versions of the name origin. One version is, that it should have been the healing effect of the wine on plague sufferers in the Siena of the 14th century, another one, the misinterpretation of the exclamation of a Greek bishop after the tasting of the wine as ‘santo’, ie sacred, instead of ‘Xanthos‘, as of originating from the Greek island of the same name.

Most likely, … Read more ...

Foaming sweetness – Moscato from Veneto

Nearly 20 DOC or DOCG sparkling wines of different Moscato varieties are available in Italy. Almost all are sweet. Among the best known are the Moscato d’Asti DOCG and the Asti Spumante DOCG. In addition to the Moscato sparkling wines originating from controlled areas of origin, there are a variety of sparkling wines from Moscato, which are marketed as land wines from Italy.

We tasted three different Moscato sparkling wines from the Veneto, one of which, the Fior d’Arancio Colli Euganei Spumante Dolce of the Cantina Colli Euganei, made from the Moscato Giallo (Gold Muscatel), is a DOCG wine (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita). The other two wines have … Read more ...