I did a quick tasting over the weekend of a dozen pinot noirs – blauburgunder – from Alto Adige, Italy, and it was one of the most fun tastings I did this summer, so far. It wasn’t because they were the best wines or the most powerful or structured. I regularly drink top Burgundy and just the other night I had a 1999 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Echezeaux at a dinner with friends from Hong Kong. But it was a fascinating tasting, reviewing a dozen pinots from Italy’s mountainous wine regions.
The 13 pinots I tasted blind on Saturday were a whole different thing compared to top Burgundy, and that’s why they were delicious and satisfying. Some had a more minerally or dried fruit character that suggests that they used different clones from Burgundy as well as the unique minerally and mountainous soils of Alto Adige. Others were more fruit-forward and structured like pinots form places such as California’s Russian River. Even others were slatey and intense like pinots from New Zealand’s Central Otago. Anyway, I enjoyed the diversity and precision of the wines and they were so drinkable.
“Our pinot noirs have a unique style because of our unique vine growing area,” admitted Andi Punter of Franz Haas Wines. “No one makes pinots like ours.”
Indeed, below are the wines I tasted including one from Trentino.
Photos from top to bottom: a bottle of Tiefenbrunner Pinot Nero Süditrol Linticlarus Riserva 2013, a bottle of Franz Haas Pinot Noir Alto Adige; and two bottles of pinot noirs
-James Suckling, CEO
