Saturday, December 14, 2024

Tasting 5 Wines from Trentino - Aldo Adige, Italy, at the Washington Wine and Cheese Seminar led by Annette Schiller, ombiasy WineTours (December 2024)





Annette Schiller, ombiasy WineTours, led a tasting of 5 wines from Trentino - Alto Adige, the northernmost wine region of Italy, at the Washington Wine and Cheese Seminar on Tuesday, December 10th, 2024.

Invitation: Tasting 5 Wines from Trentino - Aldo Adige, Italy, at the Washington Wine and Cheese Seminar led by Annette Schiller, ombiasy WineTours (December 2024)

Dear wine friends,

I invite you to join me next Tuesday, December 10th at 7.45 pm when we do a tour through some Alto Adige and Trentino vineyards. 

Being the northernmost wine region of Italy, Trentino - Alto Adige is a very special place where Italian and German traditions merge. Trentino-Alto Adige is a fascinating and unique region in the Alpes. It boasts of an extraordinary variety of landscapes: snow-capped mountains in the Dolomites, valleys, streams, Lake Garda, century-old breathtakingly beautiful towns true to their hybrid Germanic-Italian culture.  In the Middle Ages this region went through a rollercoaster of invasions and was a continuous bone of contention. Finally, in the early 16-hundreds Alto Adigo-Trentino became part of the Habsburg Empire. After WWI it came to Italy but it was only in 1946 that an official agreement was signed which gave this region extensive autonomy. Since the 1970s, most legislative and administrative powers have been transferred to the two self-governing provinces that make up the region: the province of Trento, commonly known as Trentino and the province of Bolzano, commonly known as Alto Adige or Süd-Tirol in German. Official languages are German and Italian. 

Trentino-Alto Adige has a very long history of winemaking, about 3000 years. Trentino-Alto-Adige’s vineyards are true Alpin vineyards on elevations of 700 - 3,300 ft mostly on mostly gravelly soils. 
 
Because of its altitude, even in the summer night temperatures are always cool which is excellent for the production of finesse white wines. 
 
This makes the region famous for single variety crisp, beautiful white wines. In terms of quantity, more red wine is produced than white. More than 50 percent of all vineyards are planted with the light Schiava (Vernatsch in German). More and more vineyard area has been dedicated to Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir). The red Lagrein vine actually comes originally from Trentino, but the finest Lagrein grows in Gries on flatter, lower-lying vineyards directly near Bozen in Alto Adige. The often almost opaque, dark purple Teroldego Rotaliano, also an indigenous grape variety of the region, on the other hand, comes from one of the few rock-lined valleys in the northern part of Trentino. Trentino is also home of the production of modern style red blends. 

As the climate gets warmer in many famous and well-knows wine regions the focus shifts more and more to higher altitude, cooler climate regions such as Trentino-Alto Adige in search of elegant, moderate alcohol wines.

We will taste 5 wines from top producers:

1) 2021 Weißburgunder, J. Hofstätter, Tramin-Termeno
3) 2023 Pinot Noir, Cantina Tramin, Tramin-Termeno
4) 2022 Schiava, Alois Lageder, Magré
4) 2022 Lagrein, Muri Gries, Bozen-Bolzano
5) 2022 Teroldego, Foradori, Mezzolombardo

In case you wonder: The Teroldego is so important to the region that I decided to replace the original wine with this wine after I found enough bottles of the Teroldego in the DC region.

The two cheeses from Calvert & Woodley reflect this bi-cultural region: 
 
Pecorino Toscano, an Italian cheese and Cambozola, a Germanic cheese.

Please join me for this interesting tasting adventure.
 
This is a 30 $ class. 

WHERE & WHEN WE MEET: The Seminar meets at 7:45PM every Tuesday (except for July, August and the weeks of December 25th and January 1st) at St. Patricks Episcopal Church at 4700 Whitehaven Pky, between Foxhall Road and MacArthur Blvd. 

No reservations are required.
 
Annette
 
Wine Tours - Wine Education - Wine Events
Annette Schiller, Diplom-Volkswirt
Washington DC - Frankfurt am Main
USA: Ph and WhatsApp +1 703 459 7513
GER: Ph and WhatsApp +49 -177 337 0281
Office:
6404 Woodsong Ct
McLean, VA 22101 - USA

Trentino-Alto Adige/ Wine-Searcher

Trentino-Alto Adige is Italy's northernmost wine region, located right on the border with Austria. Production was once dominated by the local Lagrein and Schiava red grape varieties. Now white wines are more important in volume terms and are increasingly made from well-known international varieties such as Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay. 
 
Reflecting its complex geopolitical history, Trentino-Alto Adige is composed of two autonomous provinces. Trentino is almost entirely Italian speaking, while Alto Adige has a predominantly German-speaking population. The latter know their province by the name Südtirol (South Tyrol in English). This is due to the region's former status as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, from which it was reclaimed by Italy in 1919.

The region's population of more than a million people is divided fairly equally between the two provinces. As a whole, approximately two-thirds of them speak Italian as their first language. Looking at a map, Trentino-Alto Adige is divided almost perfectly, with Trentino in the south and Alto Adige in the north.

The provincial and regional capital is Trento (from which Trentino takes its name), on the banks of the Adige river. It lies just downstream from Italy's top winemaking school, the Istituto Agrario di San Michele all'Adige. The influence of modern consumer preferences have been just as prevalent here as in other Italian regions. Trentino-Alto Adige is the only Italian region whose planted area increased in the last quarter of the 20th Century.

The wines from the region reflect cultural as well as topographical complexity. While Germanic varieties such as Müller-Thurgau and Sylvaner reign supreme in some of the region's vineyards, in others the local Schiava grape holds sway. There are also increasing quantities of Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Bianco, Sauvignon Blanc and the red Bordeaux varieties.

In many ways the climate here defies what might be expected in an alpine region straddling the 46th parallel north (it shares this latitude with central Burgundy). The valley floors heat up very quickly on summer mornings, sending warm air up into the vineyard-lined slopes. This, coupled with the bright alpine sunshine, results in rich, ripe wine styles that one might not expect from such a cool, fresh region. A similar set of conditions can be seen in southern Swiss Ticino, 100 miles (160km) to the west.

The currents of warm alpine air also help to ward off vine diseases and fungal afflictions. The soils hold fewer surprises, being made up largely of alluvial and colluvial deposits, relatively free-draining and rich in minerals.

The region is bisected east from west by the Adige river, which gives Alto Adige (Upper Adige) its name. The valleys formed by the Adige and its tributaries are home to almost all of the region's vineyards.  Outside of these areas, the terrain is generally too mountainous for viticulture. As it is many Alto Adige vineyards are near ski slopes winter sports venues.

From Munich to Venice: 
Opening of the Oktoberfest, Alto Adige-Trentino, Valdobbiadene, Veneto:
Friday, September 19 – Monday, September 29, 2025

Next year, Annette has scheduled a wine tour by ombiasy to the region.

You are right: Munich is not a wine growing area but we will start our wine tour through the Northern Italian Alpine wine regions in the beer capital. We start our wine tour in Munich with a wine tasting at one of Germany’s most acclaimed wine merchants. Saturday morning we will witness the festive “Grand Entry of the Oktoberfest Landlords and Breweries” which is the highlight of every Oktoberfest. The huge brewery horses pulling the beer wagons to the festival tents are beautifully decorated, the landlords and -ladies are dressed in their best traditional Bavarian outfits and this festive beginning of the Oktoberfest has not changed much since its beginning in 1810. Sunday, we take the train to Bozen, the heart of the Alto Adige wine region and gateway to the higher Alpin mountains. We explore the beautiful wine regions of Alto Adige and Trentino and learn about many grape varieties indigenous to these regions. The heritage – also in the winemaking field - is truly Germanic, given the fact that Alto Adige belonged to the Austrian Habsburg Empire since the Middle Ages. Only in 1946 an agreement was signed which gave Trentino-Alto Adige to Italy as an autonomous region. Our journey takes us south to Italy’s Veneto wine region where we stop in the breathtakingly beautiful Valdobbiadene-Conegliano region, the home of top Prosecco production and top notch Franciacorta, Italy’s sparkling wine which is produced in the traditional method by an extended second fermentation in the bottle. The final stop will be the Lagoon of Venice where we visit some wine producers and will have a fantastic seafood meal on the small island of Torcello. 

This is a 10-nights – 11-days wine tour. The tour starts in Munich and ends in Venice.

See:  ANNOUNCEMENT: Wine Tours in Europe by ombiasy with Annette Schiller 2025

Cheese and Baguette from Calvert and Woodley 


 
Tasting











 
The Wines








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