schiller-wine: The Wines of Trentino Alto Adige, Italy: Tasting at the German Wine Society in Washington DC, led by Annette Schiller (September 2025)

German Wine Society Washington DC: The German Wine Society explored the Alto Adige, a German-speaking Alpine region now part of Italy, in a presentation on Sept. 25 conducted by the very knowledgeable Annette Schiller and featuring ten sparkling, white and red wines from this region.

Annette’s familiarity with and love of this subject were enthusiastically received by the audience, with both longtime members and first-timers, and all the wines had their champions. Annette plans to conduct a small-group tour of this beautiful wine region in 2026, for those eager to learn more about the Alto Adige.

Christian Schiller: Fantastic Trentino Alto Adige tasting at the German Wine Society - Washington DC led by Annette Schiller. Annette has scheduled an Ombiasy Public Relations and Wine Tours tour to Trentino Alto Adige for September 6 to 13, 2026.

Tour 3: Trentino - Alto Adige: Sunday, September 06 - Sunday, September 13, 2026 -> 8 days - 7 nights. We stay the entire time in the Parkhotel Laurin in Bozen - an absolutely beautiful, extremely charming Grand Hotel with a stunning park and pool area. We will also do a day trip to the Veneto - tasting some Amarone and visiting Verona

Invitation: VISIT THE ALTO ADIGE WITH THE GERMAN WINE SOCIETY AND ANNETTE SCHILLER!

The German Wine Society’s Capital Chapter invites you to join us on Saturday, September 13^th, 2025 at 7.00 pm for a tour presented by our own Annette Schiller through the Alto Adige (or in the German language: Süd-Tirol) and Trentino vineyards. A few of our tasting events have included wines of this region before, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire dinner, but we have never had the opportunity to do a tasting before now focused entirely on the Alto Adige. This is an area where German and Alpine winemaking traditions merge with Italian ones, on the edge of the German-speaking region of Europe, and thus a very suitable topic for the German Wine Society. Registrations for this event are due by Tuesday, September 9, 2025, and the price is $50 for GWS members, $57 for non-members. Please be aware that, due to limited supply of the wines and size of the venue, we have a maximum cap of 40 for attendance at this event. Reserve early to avoid disappointment!

As the climate gets warmer the wine connoisseur's 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 the following wines:

The Whites:

1. 2022 Riesling, Kloster Neustift, Eisacktal, DOC Alto Adige

2. 2023 Weissburgunder, J.Hofstätter, Tramin, DOC Alto Adige

3. 2022 Nosiola, Cesconi Società Agricola, IGT, Vigneti Delle Dolomiti

4. 2023 Gewürztraminer, Elena Walch, Tramin, DOC Alto Adige

Sparkling Wine:

5. NV Ferrari Rosé, Brut, Trento DOC

The Reds:

6. 2023 Schiava, Alois Lageder, Magrè, DOC Alto Adige

7. 2023 Pinot Noir, Cantina Terlan, DOC Alto Adige

8. 2023 Lagrein, Muri-Gries, DOC Alto Adige

9. 2022 Teroldego, Foradori, IGT, Vigneti Delle Dolomiti

10. 2021 Dinotte Blend, Cantina Mezzocorona, IGT, Vigneti Delle Dolomiti

A tasty buffet of cheeses, bread, crackers, charcuterie, grapes and veggies will be provided to accompany the wines. ....

If you have questions about this event, you may contact the event organizer and presenter, Annette Schiller, at aschiller@ombiasypr.com , or by phone at 703-459-7513. Annette’s website is www.ombiasypr.com . For questions about registration and membership, please contact Carl Willner, Capital Chapter President and Secretary, at carl.willner1@verizon.net .

If you no longer wish to receive our announcements, please reply to this email to the sender.

Pictures: Wine Country Italy - Lake Como, Tuscany, Alto Adige - in the Summer of 2025

Report by President Carl Willner

Fellow GWS Capital Chapter Board Members, and Annette,

Last night, Saturday, September 13, 2025, the German Wine Society Capital Chapter held its last event of astronomical summer and seventh of this year, the Alto Adige Tasting presented by Annette Schiller, at Annette’s preferred location in the clubroom of Klaus Teuter’s Van Ness apartment building on Veazey Terrace. The event opened its doors at 6:30 pm for guests and commenced at 7 pm, finishing about 9:30 pm. Annette and Christian Schiller, Karen Stokes, Klaus Teuter, and my wife Nina and I all arrived early around 5:30 pm to help with the setup, which was complete before guests started arriving. We had 35 persons registered for the event, 25 members and 10 non-member guests. ...

Karen brought the food and organized a delicious buffet presentation (including among other things mozzarella slices with olives, and vanilla pizzelle, to give an Italian flavor). ...

and we were done and out of the clubroom between 10:30 and 11 pm, notwithstanding several of us lingering for conversation and enjoyment of a sweet wine Klaus provided.

Annette’s presentation was, as always, knowledgeable and full of good insights about the wines, accompanied by very attractive slides illustrating the beautiful landscapes and wineries of the Alto Adige region (we covered both the actual Alto Adige region and the adjoining Trentino region). We tasted ten wines during the evening, four white, one sparkling, and five red. Several of these were grapes familiar to German wine lovers, as befits a region on the edge of the German-speaking world, including a Riesling, Weissburgunder, Gewürztraminer, and Pinot Noir; the Lagrein can also be found in Germany and the Schiava we had goes under the name of Trollinger in Germany. But others we tried are not encountered in Germany, including a Nosiola, a Teroldego (a traditional variety that had gone extinct and has been revived genetically), and the final wine, a Dinette Blend. Annette explained that Italy does not have a sweetness scale or a terroir-based system for individual vineyards as in Germany (though Italy is moving toward recognition of single vineyards of particular quality), but relies on the DOC system, which is region-wide and sets requirements about which grapes can qualify in a particular region and how the wines need to be produced. Seven of the ten wines we had received a DOC appellation, while three had an IGT reflecting the inability of those particular grapes to be approved for DOC in the region at issue. At the end, Annette asked participants to identify their favorite wine of the evening, and nearly all of the wines got some votes, reflecting the overall quality of what we tasted and the variety of good wines produced in the Alto Adige appealing to many tastes.

This was definitely one of our more educational tastings of the year, accompanying Annette’s other Comparative Rieslings presentation in the spring, Phil Bernstein’s New Vintages, and the Rebholz tasting at the German Embassy in January (which Christian accurately described as a master class in German wines)....

Overall, this was a very successful event from all perspectives, providing both education about and enjoyment of wines, exposure to a new wine region in the German-speaking world with which most members and guests were not familiar, and .... We can all look forward to the next time that Annette presents on a wine topic for the GWS! Onward to the Oktober Weinfest and Holiday Dinner to complete our wine year!

A Historical Overview of the Alto Adige and its Winemaking

Trentino-Alto Adige, as this region is referred to in English-language guide books to wine regions, is the northernmost wine region of Italy and a very special place where Italian and German traditions merge. Trentino-Alto Adige is a fascinating and unique region in the Alps. It boasts of an extraordinary variety of landscapes: snow-capped mountains in the Dolomites, valleys, streams, Lake Garda, and century-old breathtakingly beautiful towns true to their hybrid Germanic-Italian culture.

This region, situated south of the Alpine Brenner Pass, has been through a rollercoaster of invasions and was a continuous bone of contention due to its strategic importance. Even in Roman times, the Brenner Pass was strategically significant, on the northern frontier of the Empire. In the Middle Ages, it served as the main connection between Central Europe and Italy for merchants, pilgrims, and armies. Finally, in the early 1600s Trentino (Süd-Tirol)-Alto Adige became part of the Habsburg Empire. After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire and the Central Powers after WW I, this region was annexed by Italy. Countless uprisings by the Germanic population followed and Italy tried to eliminate the German language and culture.

Modern-day Süd-Tirol was created in 1948, after WW II. It was 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 (Bozen), commonly known as Alto Adige or Süd-Tirol in German. Official languages are German and Italian. The people have Italian citizenship.

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 on mostly gravelly soils. Because of the altitude of this region, even in the hot and sunny summers night temperatures are always cool and these diurnal temperature differences are excellent for the production of wines of great finesse. This makes the region famous for single variety crisp, beautiful white wines such as Pinot Bianco (Pinot Blanc), Gewürztraminer, and the indigenous grape Nosiola. 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.

The Wines of Trentino Alto Adige - Trentino Suedtirol