Alto Adige Wine Pairings

Earlier this year, we had a chance to join a live tasting webinar with Kellerei Bozen. This provided a perfect opportunity to refresh this article with Alto Adige wine pairings and background on Italy’s northernmost wine region. Disclosure: The Kellerei Bozen wines discussed here and some of the other bottles were provided as complimentary samples.

This month, the Italian Food, Wine and Travel group’s theme is “Alpine Red and Whites”. This follows a tasting webinar many of us joined with Kellerei Bozen (also referred to as Cantina Balzano), a highly regarded winery in Italy’s Alto Adige – Südtirol region. Thanks to Susannah from Avvinaire for organizing the webinar, and to Cam at Culinary Cam for hosting this ItalianFWT event!

Let’s start with some background on the region and the winery. Stay tuned for the wine pairings we enjoyed with the Kellerei Bozen wines and some other Alto Adige pairings that we have enjoyed.

Jump to:

• Italy’s Alto Adige – Südtirol Wine Region
• Kellerei Bozen Background
• Kellerei Bozen Wines & Pairings
• Other Alto Adige Pairings
• More Italian Alpine wine articles

Italy’s Alto Adige – Südtirol Wine Region

The Alto Adige – Südtirol is Italy’s northern most wine region, bordering both Austria and Switzerland. This location gives cool breezes from the Alps combined with Mediterranean sun for some great wine grape growing conditions.

The use of the German Südtirol for the province known in English as South Tyrol gives some indication of the bicultural nature of this Italian region. You will see the German influence in the wine grapes, too, with Riesling and Gewürztraminer common among the white wines produced in the region. Alto Adige – Südtirol also produces a number of international white wines including Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc.

As of 2023, 65% of the wines produced in the region are white and 35% red. When it comes to red wine, the indigenous grapes Schiava and Lagrein dominate. While the majority of wines produced in the region are white, our tasting with Kellerei Bozen demonstrated that there are some excellent red wines to enjoy from the area, too.

Kellerei Bozen Background

Kellerei Bozen (or Cantina Bozen) is an Alto Adige – Südtirol winery with its roots in two cooperatives in Gries and Santa Maddalena, that were founded in 1908 and 1930, respectively. They merged in 2001, creating Kellerei Bozen as a leading Alto Adige producer, with 224 growers contributing grapes for the winery.

Kellerei Bozen moved into a new, state of the art winery in 2018. It features gravity flow winemaking capability and represents their embrace of technology along with sustainable practices.

Kellerei Bozen Wines & Pairings

So we had four red wines to sample from Cantina Bozen. Here’s a summary of the wines along with the food pairings we enjoyed with them.

Lagrein Perl

We started by trying the 2022 Alto Adige Lagrein Perl ($30, 13.5% ABV). I got violets and woodsy notes of this 100% Lagrein, with red berry fruit and well-integrated tannins on the palate. Moderate acidity.

The Perl is a very enjoyable wine for sipping! And it also was excellent paired with our Everyday Pasta Sauce recipe.

I came up with the recipe early in the pandemic, to stretch a modest amount of ground beef on hand along with chickpeas and mushrooms. Still a go to recipe, and a good match for an Alto Adige red wine.

Lagrein is an indigenous grape variety, widely planted in Alto Adige. It does best in warmer sites at lower elevations.

Taber Lagrein Riserva

The Perl was an excellent wine, at a relatively modest $30 suggested retail price (SRP). So I was very curious to try the 2020 Kellerei Bozen Taber Lagrein Riserva ($80, 14% ABV), described as the winery’s red wine for special occasions. This is the one I decided not to open during our webinar, and save when I had time to cook up something else to pair with the wine.

The Taber was worth the wait! This Lagrein is a deep inky purple in the glass. The nose conjured up the smells of a summery meadow, along with some red berries. On the palate, notes of blackberry, currant, and a bit of leather. Medium acidity, and well-integrated tannins. The wine is drinking well now, but has good aging potential.

Well, this was a wine where I was waiting to be inspired by the “perfect pairing” concept before opening. But then the Italian Alpine wine event was coming up, and I decided it was time to open the Taber with something on the week’s menu.

Knowing the entree I was preparing was a bit of an unorthodox pairing, I wanted to first test this reserve Lagrein with a cheese plate. Glad I did! My favorite pairing for the Taber wound up being the Ossau Iraty sheep’s milk cheese. The bold flavors of the age cheese matched the style of the wine very nicely.

The success of the Taber paired with a cheese from the French Basque region showed that the “what grows together goes together” maxim does not always work. We also tried the Taber with a pungent Taleggio cheese, which hails from the Bergamo province north of Milan. Certainly a lot closer to Cantina Bozen than Basque country, albeit not Alto Adige. But the strong, earthy flavors of the Taleggio did not mesh very well with the refined aspects of the Taber.

We also had prosciutto on the plate, which went pretty well with the wine. I can’t recall trying a wine pairing with prosciutto that does not work, come to think of it!

Ok, on to the main course. We then tried the Taber Lagrein Riserva with the One Pot Chicken and Lentils recipe from NY Times Cooking. Gift link included in case you’d like to try it! It is a tasty recipe.

However, the rustic chicken dish is flavored with cumin and turmeric, which didn’t exactly play too well with the Taber. The pairing was OK – but if you try the recipe, I’d suggest going with a lighter red wine that picks up the spice elements better. Pinot Noir works, and we also have enjoyed it with a Nerello Mascalese from Sicily.

Save the Taber for a special meal – maybe a holiday feast or a Sunday roast! And try nibbling on a bit of Iraty cheese with a little pour of the wine as you are cooking.

Blauburgunder / Pinot Nero

With the name of the next wine, the 2023 Blauburgunder Pinot Nero ($28, 13% ABV) we again get a sense of the mix of German and Italian cultural influence in the region. Blauburgunder is a German synonym for the Pinot Noir grape; which goes by Pinot Nero in Italy.

On the webinar, someone commented that the Pinot Nero has notes that reminds them of “an alpine meadow”. A good description!

This Pinot Nero is a pretty wine, with red berry fruit and pleasant mouthfeel. Definitely a Pinot with a taste distinctly different than one from the US. Definitely has a sense of place. The Pinot Nero was very good with cheddar cheese, during my initial tasting of the wine.

After tasting a bit of the Pinot Nero during the webinar, I saved the rest of the bottle to pair with dinner the next day. Another nontraditional pairing, but this one worked out better. Yes, it was a pasta dish, but our Pasta with Red Lentils and Ginger flavor profile is more Asian than Italian.

While I typically serve the pasta and red lentils recipe with a white wine, it was quite good paired with the Pinot Nero. This demonstrates the versatility of the food friendly wine.

The winery recommends serving the Pinot Nero with roast beef. Our Top Round Roast Beef recipe would be a good option!

Schiava blend

The 2022 Kellerei Bozen Santa Maddalena Huck am Bach ($23 ,13% ABV) is a blend of 90% Schiava and 10% Lagrein. Schiava, also known as Vernatsh in the region, is fruit forward and low in tannins, making it a red wine that can be served with a slight chill. I realized when preparing this article that I had previously written about the 2017 version of this wine, too.

I get blackberry and cherry fruit on the Huck am Back, with more acidity than the other reds we sampled. I also noted an underlying minerality.

This time around, we paired this Schiava blend with some leftover Everyday Pasta, which I had originally cooked to go with the Perl Lagrein. To go with the leftover pasta, I also made a batch of Roasted Root Veggies with Hot Honey. (another NY Times Cooking recipe with gift link provided). The Huck am Bach worked well with the pasta, as you might suspect, but was also good with the flavorful root veggie side dish.

I wasn’t a big fan of this wine with cheddar cheese; but I noted it was good with Gruyere when I previously tried the wine.

I paired the 2017 Huck am Back with our fettuccine primavera. That was OK, but I’d say the wine works better with the tomato based meat sauce.

Other Alto Adige Pairings

I am generally a fan of Alto Adige wines, and we have had a chance to do a number of good pairings with Alto Adige wines over the years. That includes a sampling of a variety of wines from the region a few years ago.

Below we recap some other good Alto Adige wines we’ve tried and pairings we’ve done.

Nussbaumer Gewürztraminer

I tend to associate Gewürztraminer with Austria and Germany, seeing it planted in Italy’s Alto Adige – Südtirol region is a good indication of the areas Germanic influences. And we got to see how good Gewürztraminer can be from this part of Italy!

We got to try the 2016 Nussbaumer Gewürztraminer (14.9% ABV, 8.1 g/ l residual sugar) from Cantina Tramin Kellerei.

This Gewürztraminer has a nice floral bouquet. On the palate, peach fruit with a touch of honey and stone.

We opened the Nussbaumer Gewürztraminer to go with some Indian takeout. As you might suspect, the fruit forward Gewurzt was a great match for Indian food! Not the first time I’ve had good success pairing Italian wine with Indian food –check out our Italian wine for Indian curry article and recipe.

Another Tramin Gewürztraminer just recently got some very special recognition. Their Gewürztraminer Epokale became the first Italian white wine to receive a 100 point score from Robert Parker.

Lagrein with Leftover Steak Pasta

Lagrein produces wine with bold, strong flavors, suitable for a cooler evening and hearty fare.

I decided to open the  2017 Muri Gries Alto Adige Lagrein (13.5% ABV) to go with our Leftover Steak Pasta. Inky dark purple in the glass, I got violets, cloves and menthol on the nose. On the palate, blackberry fruit and a smokiness, making me think of bacon.

This big, bold Lagrein from the Alto Adige – Südtirol was definitely a good match for the Leftover Steak Pasta. It would also go well with other hearty meat dishes.

The Muri-Gries winery has an interesting history. In 1845, Benedictine monks moved from Muri in Switzerland to the town of Gries in South Tyrol, and picked up on the wine making traditions associated with the property to which they had come. Muri-Gries has a focus on Lagrein but make a number of other wines with The winery continues to be a part of the abbey today — more on the history and wine can be found on the Muri-Gries website.

For another delicious pairing with a Muri-Gries wine, check out the Tomato Apple Pasta recipe, which paired well with one of their red blends.

More Italian Alpine wine articles

Be sure to check out these arilces from my Italian Food, Wine and Travel colleagues!

• Alto Adige Red Wines Paired with Sierra Nevada Adventures and Cabin-Cooked Meals by Culinary Cam
• Bolzano and the Alto Adige Wines of Kellerei Bozen by Crushed Grape Chronicles
• From a Country of Contrasts: Pinot Noir, Schiava, Lagrein at Alto Adige’s Cantina di Bolzano plus a Menu for Alpine Wines by Wine predator…Gwendolyn Alley
• From the Dolomites to Your Glass: Tasting 4 Alpine Reds and a Refreshing Kretzer by ENOFYLZ Wine Blog
• Head northeast for juicy Italian reds by My Full Wine Glass
• Italian Red Wines from Trentino-Alto Adige with Kellerei Bolzano by Vino Travels
• Italian Wines at Altitude by Avvinare
• Two Italian Dinners, Two Wines from the Italian Alps, and a Book Review by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Uncorking the Italian Alps: A Journey Through Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio and Exquisite Alp Whites by Our Good Life