Alto Adige is one of Italy’s smallest wine-growing areas. Located as it is at the interface between the Alpine north and the Mediterranean south, it is also one of its most diverse. Countless generations have shaped Alto Adige as a land of wine, where vines grow on various types of soil and in a range of climate zones at between 200 and 1,000 meters above sea-level. It is the home of authentic wines with a character of their own, with a focus on white wines: About 60 percent of the sites are planted with white varieties and only 40 percent with red.

The Cantina Terlano winery has a traditional focus on long-living wines. White wines from Terlano in particular have repeatedly hit the headlines in trade publications with their ability to outlast the decades. The longevity of their wines is due to a combination of the high mineral content of the soils, old vines growing in complete harmony, carefully managed vineyards with low yields per vine, and the rigorous selection of heathy and fully mature grapes.

Wine-making in Terlano traditionally involves the use of wooden barrels. Special emphasis is also placed on the “sur lie” method, with the wines often left to age on the yeast for years before being bottled and left to slowly mature to perfection. The slow maturation process gives the wines their specific character and complexity. The focus is on developing the complex secondary and tertiary aromas rather than the primary aromas. Proof of the benefits of this approach is to be found in the winery’s wine archive, which contains over 100,000 bottles in a collection of rarities comprising various vintages from 1955 to the present. Some of the wines actually date from 1893, the year the winery was founded.

Manual harvest and selection of the grapes; gentle pressing and clarification of the must; slow fermentation at a controlled temperature in stainless steel tanks, aging on the lees in steel tanks for 5-7 months.