The Termeno company presents the 2017 vintage of Gewürztraminer Spätlese, the pinnacle of quality for the variety and its evolutionary potential, supported by research by the Mach Foundation.
Cantina Tramin presents Epokale 2017, the new vintage of the wine created to redesign the stylistic and expressive canons of Gewürztraminer, challenging the evolutionary expectations of the variety.
“This vintage was notable for its limited yields and the late October harvest, which was slightly later than previous harvests, resulting in slightly overripe bunches,” explains Willi Stürz , winemaker and technical director of the Termeno winery. “In fact, starting with the 2015 vintage, we chose to return to a sweeter, more intense profile than previous years, realizing that greater concentration, and its relationship with acidity, allows us to extract the most from the grape variety in terms of aromatic breadth and refinement, body, balance, and extraordinary aging potential.”
The 2017 vintage, specifically, has a residual sugar content of 66 g/l and a pH of 3.7. However, the high residual sugar content requires more time to reach ideal balance in the bottle. For this reason, the winemaker decided to extend the aging of the 2017 vintage from six to seven years inside the Ridanna Monteneve mine (Bolzano), in conditions of darkness, humidity, and constant temperature at approximately 2,000 m above sea level.
The empirically based belief developed by Cantina Tramin over many years of observations, intuitions, studies, and field trials regarding the aromatic evolution of Gewürztraminer over time has finally found scientific support in research conducted by a team from the Edmund Mach Foundation* , coordinated by Professor of Food Chemistry Fulvio Mattivi . The study analyzed the chemical substances present in Gewürztraminer grapes and the associated aromatic conversion processes. It focused in particular on the central role of monoterpenes , which determine the grape’s typical aromas of rose, nutmeg, mango, lychee, and dried herbs. Many of these aromatic substances are released over the years, involved in slow chemical and enzymatic processes that give the wine further nuances and increase its complexity with aging. This characteristic, typical of Gewürztraminer , makes it one of the few white wines capable not simply of being preserved for a long time, but of strengthening and becoming more precious over time .
Epokale , debuting with the 2009 vintage, is the only Italian white wine to have earned 100/100 points from Robert Parker-The Wine Advocate . The potential for over twenty years of aging, the unique nature of its maturation in the mine, the extremely limited production of 2,150 bottles, and its select distribution make it a rare and precious wine, sought after by collectors.