And yet it seems to us that the range of South Tyrolean wines has become more and more diverse and thus more exciting in recent years. This is not only due to the growing number of small, committed winegrowers who are increasingly successful in finding their niche alongside the large cooperatives and long-established private wineries, but perhaps more than one would expect at first glance.
For the increasing competition also seems to be having an effect on many of the established wineries. On the one hand, they have discovered the trend towards exclusive prestige bottlings with which they want to set new brands in terms of quality and price (which they often succeed in doing, but not always convincingly). At the same time, however, the basic and mid-range wines of the big houses also seem to be gaining in individuality and expressiveness. It helps that many estates have declared war on the consequences of climate change and are putting a lot of effort into bringing fresh, precise and, if possible, less alcoholic wines to the bottle.
The efforts seem to be paying off. Thus, we have the impression that after years in which the South Tyrolean tastings became more and more exhausting due to the increasing alcohol heaviness of many wines, our enjoyment of the samples has clearly increased again.
This applies, as already mentioned, by no means only to the top wines, but there too. We were able to award almost 70 of the 370 wines tasted with scores of 90 or more. An impressive number considering the fact that we by no means only taste the prestige lines of the region. In doing so, we have by no means adapted our rating system to the general tendency towards score inflation. We are as realistic as ever. It is already the wines that are becoming more and more convincing.
As always, all wines were tasted blind and often several times in our tasting room in Erlangen. We present the best results here. Links to all wines can be found at the end of each list.