Cantina Terlan

Wine rarity: This year’s choice is the 2003 Chardonnay  Monday 09 March 2015

Having matured for over a decade, it is now ready for drinking: the 2003 Chardonnay, Terlano’s latest wine rarity. As usual, the limited edition wine will be making its official debut at Europe’s leading wine trade shows, namely Pro Wein in Dusseldorf (March 15–17) and Vinitaly in Verona (March 22 –25).

Sometimes renewal is needed to preserve tradition. That takes courage and the willingness to pull together. Fortunately there was no lack of either when the Terlano Wine Growers’ Cooperative was established way back in 1893. What was a daring departure at the time has proved successful up to the present day. For wine lovers at least, Terlano wines have brought international fame to this small South Tyrolean village.

The foundation of the Cantina Terlano in 1893 took place at a time when agriculture was the mainstay of the regional economy. Apart from a few innovative winegrowers, however, who looked to the Rheingau region for new ideas and brought grape varieties from Germany and France to South Tyrol, agriculture under the domination of a few big landowners was backward.

The landlords were also the dominant factor in winemaking in the region. In order to liberate themselves from this domination, 24 Terlano winegrowers decided to join forces and founded the Cantina Terlano. Whereas red wines were more common in South Tyrol at the end of the 19th century, with a red to white ratio of 80:20, Terlano was already well known as a white wine area in 1893. Over the years this focus on white wines has been consolidated, and today the ratio of whites to reds at the Cantina Terlano is 70 percent white to 30 percent red.

History of wine growing

In Terlano, wine growing goes back to pre-Roman times. Thanks to its fine climate and location above the flood plain, the area around Settequerce, San Maurizio and Gries was ideally suited to human settlement. Archeological finds, including ladles and bronze vessels from the 5th to the 4th centuries B.C., are indicative of early wine growing activity.

Above all, the Settequerce pruning knife from the late Iron Age is considered clear evidence of wine growing in the prehistoric period. The shape of the little knife, with the sharply angled end of the blade, is obviously dictated by its use for pruning vines, all the more so as this basic shape has survived over the millennia with little change right up until today. In addition to the pruning knife, finds of large quantities of grape seed, which have been assigned to the same period, offer additional confirmation of the theory, and wine growing in Terlano in the late Iron age can be treated as historical fact.

Born of fire: Terlano’s vineyards nestle like sun terraces in red porphyry rock of volcanic origins. A type of Bolzano quartz-porphyry, it comprises a sequence of acidic lavas and volcanic eruption products with intermediate sediment layers. The mainly quartz-rich rocks are composed of minerals like quartz and feldspar embedded in a fine-grained to glassy matrix.

In Terlano the near-vertical rock face consists of various formations such as ignimbrites (rhyolites and glowing avalanche deposits), tuff, conglomerates and lava flows. As a result of repeated mudflows along the Rio San Pietro, the erosion products of this geological succession were transported down to the valley, forming a debris fan that now constitutes the subsoil for the Terlano vines.

The topsoil in Terlano contains a high proportion of coarse grains of siliceous stone and sand. With its skeletal character, the soil quickly warms up. The relatively limited fine-grain fraction is mainly sandy to sandy loam.

pH: neutral to slightly acidic
Carbonate content: low to moderate
Soil type: mainly sandy to sandy loam
Soil depth: high (>2 m)
Skeleton fraction: very high
Rock: predominantly siliceous (porphyry)
Field capacity: minimal to low

Our modern winery produces 30 percent red and 70 percent white wines, all of them of DOC quality (Controlled Designation of Origin). Following the last upgrade and refurbishment in 2009, our cellars now include a total of 18,000 cubic meters of storage space, which ensures that the wines can develop undisturbed. On the outside, the new tract has a natural facing of red porphyry, the stone that gives the wines in the area their typical character. The roof is planted with vines so that it blends in completely with the surrounding countryside.

Our wines are marketed in three distinct quality lines: Selections, Vineyards and Classics. An annual rarity is also produced, which only comes on the market after it has spent at least ten years maturing in our cellars. That makes it a fine symbol of our focus on longevity.