Kellerei Bozen Wine Tastings

Tuesday, December 9. 2008

Me and my fellow geeks enjoyed tasting all of the Greis wines.

The Greis staff brought out eight wines for us to taste. Since South Tyrol offers such a large variety of terrain for wines, Greis is able to produce a very broad variety of wines, from summer whites to 10-year reds.

Some people tasted the wines seriously (Simon Phipps of Sun).

Others just enjoyed them (three hackers from Napoli).

The Weissburgunder Pinot Blanco was an interesting white. With barely any fruit at all, it instead had a light, mineral taste, like a mineral water wine. Probably good for very hot weather.

The St. Magdalener is done in the "Classico" style, similar to a Chianti. I really liked this one; it was a light, refreshing red that managed to avoid the acidity of most Chiantis. It would be perfect with lighter foods (salad, vegetables, freshwater fish).

Greis's champion wine is a local varietal called "LaGrein". This is a heavy, fruity, yet acidic wine designed for long in-the-bottle ageing. We really liked the 2006, but our host allowed us a sip of the 1999, and we could see that the acidity mellowed out and allowed the fruit of the wine to really shine. This is a hearty main course wine.

We drank five others as well, but I'll admit that after 8 glasses of wine on an empty stomach I don't remember all of them. One which I also did really like was their Merlot Reserva, which due to 24 months in oak is a dense, spicy wine, inky in color and not in any way the spineless medium wine we've come to expect from California merlots. I brought a bottle of this home for Thanksgiving.

So, Greis. Magdalener, Kellerei Bozen: buy it if you can find it.

Posted by The Fuzzy Chef in Food Tourism at 17:53 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Defined tags for this entry: bolzano, food tourism, italy, tirol, wine, winery

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Their Gewürztraminer was awesome as well, and I was fascinated to discover that the Traminer grape was local to the South Tyrol region rather than to the Rheinlands as I had previously imagined.

#1 Simon Phipps (Homepage) on 2008-12-10 15:07 (Reply)

Hi Josh, I am happy you enjoyed the wine! Be aware the name of the region is Gries, here the link to the wine cellars web site: http://www.kellereibozen.com/ Happy hacking! Patrick

#2 Patrick Ohnewein (Homepage) on 2008-12-11 05:30 (Reply)

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