Northern Italy: Alto Adige, Friuli, Veneto

By Antonio Galloni

Alto Adige: The Pearl of Italy

It is one my favorites drives in Italy. The highway turns north just past Verona. After a short while it feels like the valleys literally open up to reveal a dramatic landscape marked with apple orchards, the Adige River and the spectacular Dolomites. Just past Rovereto and Trento the vistas start to change again. We are in Alto Adige, one of the most spectacular regions in all of Italy. Seldom frequented by Americans, Alto Adige remains largely undiscovered. A wealth of starred restaurants and gorgeous, decked-out hotels – many of them in historic castles – are found in the charming, small towns that mostly attract visitors from northern Europe. During the winter, Alpine sports dominate the breathtaking hillsides. You won’t hear much Italian here, although it is spoken. German and the local Ladino dialect are more common. Visiting Alto Adige is like stepping into a whole other world. A world with fabulous food, great wine and the purest mountain air. It is hardly a surprise the locals are extremely friendly and inviting. They know they live in a little corner of paradise.

Unfortunately I only visited Alto Adige once this year and my trip was too short, but I still came away totally inspired by the best wines I tasted. Like so many parts of the world, there is an increase in small, family-run estates that have begun to bottle their own wines rather than selling grapes or bulk wine to larger cooperatives. While that is a generally positive trend, it is also clear that many of these smaller properties don’t have a lot of resources and therefore struggle with maintaining the level of consistency that is common throughout other parts of Italy. Hopefully those wineries will find a way to raise the level of their game. The best artisan wines, though, are stunningly beautiful and deserve of a far broader audience than they enjoy today.