The Alto Adige wines my friend Kevin and I are tasting tonight are made in a part of Italy that is so far north, most of the people there speak German. They’re just as likely to eat spätzle as pasta. It sits closer to Munich than Florence.
Alto Adige, known by most of its residents as Südtirol, perches at the very fringe of Italy’s boot, the part you’d grab to pull it on. It’s part of a province in a beautiful Alpine region that shares borders with Austria and Switzerland, and is culturally aligned with lands to the north. Only 23 percent of the people in Alto Adige speak Italian. Despite an attempt at forced “Italianization” under Mussolini, it operates today as part of an autonomous region of Italy, politically, economically, and socially.
So while the labels of the wines we’re tasting tonight say “Product of Italy,” that’s correct only on a political technicality.
Funny, They Don’t Look Italian
The novel Alto Adige wine we’re drinking tonight is a Sylvaner, which in fact is produced mainly in Germany (where it’s spelled Silvaner).
The other barely-Italian wine, which we’re using as a “control,” is an Alto Adige Grüner Veltliner, the signature white variety of Austria.
Both come in the long, tapered “flute” style bottle, with sloped shoulders. It’s a style of bottle often used for Rieslings and other Alsatian and Rhineland varieties.
Both wines were made in Kloster Neustift (aka Abbazia di Novacella), an Augustinian abbey in Alto Adige that’s been around longer than the Magna Carta. Kloster Neustift was established by Germans in 1142.
This is not to say the early wine was any good. For almost 500 years the brothers apparently drank some pretty rank stuff, with the website letting on that the “First step in the direction of quality” wasn’t taken until 1630. Grapes like Sylvaner came along around 1900. Modernization, several renovations, and new management ensued.
Let’s Taste the Alto Adige Sylvaner
Which brings us to the first long, tall bottle standing before us this evening.
The Sylvaner, pale yellow in the glass, smells really floral to me, reminding me of the French Viognier — almost like a perfume. That’s a good start.
The flavor? For me, nicely acidic, like a Sauvignon Blanc: some citrus, with little notes of…vegetable of some sort, I think. Like a miniature vegetable. Refreshing overall. A Teutonic porch-pounder.
My lovely wife Pam, who’s joining us this evening for drive-by tastes as she putters around, is a serious enthusiast of Sauvignon Blancs. She finds the Sylvaner middling and a bit bitter.
My wine tasting buddy Kevin, who has spent a lot of time in Europe and is an articulate observer of wine, says the Sylvaner, while not “strong,” at least “knows who it is all the way through. The winemaker sustains the narrative arc.”
High praise, even for a winemaker who’s been at it since the 12th century.
Onto the Alto Adige Grüner
Now onto the Grüner Veltliner, a variety with which we are already familiar. Pam and I are big fans of the grape. A few years ago we discovered a modern Austrian bistro in D.C., Kafe Leopold. I ordered the Grüner on our first visit partly because I’d never tried it before and partly because I liked the umlaut.
It was delicious, performing like a slightly misbehaved Sauvignon Blanc, the one that shows up to dinner with dirt on its sweater. I took a picture of the label and ordered a case for home use.
Which is why I was both surprised and delighted when I smelled it and picked up distinct notes of … bubblegum at the top of the glass.
This has happened before.
The neural wiring that connects the little nubs on our tongues with the deep parts of our brains where smells and memories merge is unique for each of us. For some reason my “bubblegum” aroma memory hunkers in a spot where it can show up unexpectedly. I’ve come to appreciate the sweet and jokey smell of bubblegum as a feature in wine, not a bug, just like I do the curious petrol smell in some Germanic wines.
I accept that a flavor or smell doesn’t have to be rational to be pleasurable.
The Grüner with the Fading Smile
Anyhow, the Grüner was already making me smile.
Otherwise the wine smelled bright and tart, and tasted tightly acidic. Beyond that, though, it didn’t have distinguishing characteristics. It didn’t have any of the edgy notes I was used to in Grüners. (The bubblegum was gone. I never expect it to linger; it’s just a passing aroma.)
Ultimately, we found that the Grüner had exactly the opposite characteristic Kevin had identified in the Sylvaner: It started strong but didn’t hold up all the way through. As Kevin put it, the wine “loses its distinguishing features quickly.” He drew an isosceles triangle in the air. The top point was “acidic and bright.” The opposite point was “weak.” The hypotenuse described the wine’s flavor trajectory from nose to finish.
This made the Sylvaner our unexpected preference of the two.
I’m not sure what all of this tells us. I’m glad I learned about this area of Italy, and about a new-to-me grape. None of it rocked my wine world, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to sip, savor, and spend time with friends as the wine quietly changes as the evening continues. This we accomplished.
Another Sylvaner: What Are the Chances?
It’s fairly easy to find Grüner Veltliners at decent wine stores and restaurant menus. But it’s rare to encounter Sylvaners in the wild. All of the Sylvaner/Silvaner planted in the world can fit on the island of Manhattan, with a bit of the Bronx thrown in.
All of the Sylvaner grown in Italy could fit on the Great Lawn in Central Park.
But as it happened, a few weeks after this tasting I got a Wine Access wine club shipment that included a Sylvaner made in Paso Robles, California, of all places, by Union Sacre Winery. It’s an alliance of two friends dedicated to making Alsatian-style wines in that randy slice of the West Coast.
It came in a tapered, flute-style bottle.
It did not smell like bubblegum.
It smelled like petrol.
It was delicious.
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Craig Stoltz writes the newsletter Eat the World.
