Elena Walch: The History in the Cellars

April 19, 2023

The Elena Walch winery in Alto Adige / Sudtirol is iconic and inspirational. Elena’s arrival in 1980s launched a quality transformation that would reset what was possible for this mountainous region that is part Italian and part German.

Having sold these wines since 2004 - first at Walt Churchill’s Market and now at Cutting Edge Selections - I was incredibly honored to be given a tour of the cellars with Owner/Winemaker Karoline Walch.

I hope you enjoy this eleven minute video.

Special thanks:
- Karoline Walch of Elena Walch
- Steve Noel http://childrenofthegrape.com

Transcript:
Note: Transcript was created by a third party service and I’ve endeavored to clean up the spelling of ‘wine words.’ There are also some Italian words that I have difficulty knowing how to spell. Any persistent errors are mine alone and not Karoline’s.
Or, watch the video. It is awesome.

Karoline Walch:

Elena Walch is one of the most historic estates in the region. It was founded in 1869 with my great, great, great-grandfather. Five generations ago, right here in Tramin. And up until today, the cellars that we use are in this very old historic building that was purchased in 1869, but winemaking really happened way longer before that. We even have an old barrel that dates back to 1700 something. Because this is a very old Jesuit monastery, used to be, so we know that the monks, even at the time, must have been making wine in here. So a lot of history, a lot of wine that these cellars have seen and seen go through.

Anyway, so 1869 is when everything happened, when everything started with my ancestors five generations ago, and the winery has been in our family ever since. So up until today, five generations later, it's my family, the Walch family owning the estate.

Everything changed with my mother, Elena. She married my father who was in the fourth generation of this estate. She used to be a former architect, born and raised in Milan, and marriage took her to this small little town of Tramin where she soon realized that there was nothing else but vineyards surrounding her.

So she always had this love and passion for wine, but she wasn't a trained winemaker . Her idea was always to make wines that were somehow the true expression of a single site. Wines that would speak for itself and would carry in a way, a certain signature. Her signature.

She started coming in and introducing a completely new philosophy and had a vision for the estate and started doing a lot of things differently and said, "Let's reduce yields." That was obviously one of the first and most important things. The trellising system went from the old pergola to the Guyot system.

Varieties obviously is a major point. At the time, mainly it was mainly Schiava that was being produced in Alto Adige. She introduced on a larger scale, more the international recognized varieties with the idea to really show the world the potential of our small little region. So she came in with a lot of ideas and a new vision for the estate, but really also for the region. Well, at some point said to my dad, "Hey, if I have all these ideas, I want my name on the label." And that's what happened in 1988. So 1988 was really when she started with Elena Walch, and what originally thought to be a small side project to the actual winery soon became its own major estate.

It's still called Wilhelm Walch, and so Wilhelm Walch is still alive, and Wilhelm Walch will work with contracted grape growers, so really families that have been delivering grapes for many, many years and many generations. So for example, we produce the Prendo Pinot Grigio that's part of the Wilhelm Walch book. And so we have farmers and families that deliver grapes. Whereas with Elena Walch, it's only estate fruit. So that's the difference between the two.

This is the oldest barrel we have that dates back to 1873, and they're all hand carved, you can see, and really tell the story of my family and the winemaking overall in the region of Alto Adige back in the days. So 1873 is the oldest that we have, and they go anywhere from say, 80 hectoliters to 180 hectoliters. So you can imagine the size. It's all Slavonian oak, and they are completely original. We're still using them.

And then here, for example, it really tells the story of my ancestors, of my family. So for every major anniversary or if someone passed away, they decided to dedicate a barrel to that person to that happening. For example, this was done for the 85 years of the estate. This one was done for the 80th anniversary of the estate, and very beautiful, this is from my favorite barrel here, right here. I'm not sure if you can see, it's all hand carved, the engravings. But it really tells the story of how winemaking was done back in the days. You look at the picture, you think, "Well, it's all pergola system, hand-picked.

We still hand pick, but we certainly don't crush the grapes and bring crushed grapes with oxes to the winery. So a lot has changed within those last, say 40 years. But it's just a beautiful way of really preserving history and showing what winemaking was like back in those days. For the largest barrel, so 180 hectoliters, and it dates back to 1903, so we still use it. It's mainly being used for Schiava, which is our indigenous grape variety that we plant and produce.

And now we go deeper down. The distributors that don't sell enough go in there.

So here we have the … cellar. So unfortunately, it's quite empty right now as we're just starting, as we're just preparing for the new vintage to arrive and hence the cellar, you'll see it empty right now. Generally, it's filled up with barrels. Any idea what we used to have in here before? You can see the ties, the beautiful glass ties. Any idea what was in here prior to these barrels here? These are old concrete tanks that went up until the [inaudible 00:06:20]. Can you see the up here on the ceiling? So they were fixed up there. So very old concrete tanks, all different concrete tanks that you see here and that were needed at the time because a lot of quantity was being produced. So when my mom started, she didn't need that much quantity, but she needed much more space for her barrels.

But just imagine even when the room is full of barrels, we would not even fill one of those tanks just to get an idea of how much wine we used to store in here. And hence, these concrete tanks have been empty for a long time. And these tiles were the inside of these concrete tanks. So when my mom needed more space, we decided to cut those tanks out, and only then we realized that these were so nicely preserved that we decided to keep them to really show the transition away from the quantity all the way to quality.

Nowadays, Alto Adige is one of the smallest regions within Italy. So we contribute less than 1% to the total Italian wine production, but yet we're considered among the most highly qualified region.

If you even look at wine awards and scores that Alto Adige gets, we really get a lot of awards and there's this beautiful chart showing awards compared to acres, and Alto Adige is always number one, because we are so little but known for our high quality. And certainly, discussed back also to my mother, who was really one of the pioneers in the high quality revolution that our whole region went through. This is a small panel, so you can see how deep and old these cellars are. So the deepest cellar is the next one, and that goes down about 10 meters below ground.

These are brand new. I still call it brand new, 2015 fermentation cellar. The idea when building this new fermentation cellar was really to continue the very delicate work that we apply in the... Sorry, we're in the middle of vintage.

So to really continue the very delicate work that we do in the vineyards, also bring that minimal intervention idea also in the cellar. So it's a completely gravity driven cellar. Grapes arrive on top and they constantly gently fall down until they get to the fermentation tanks. It's a cellar that gives us a lot of flexibility working the different vineyards and varieties differently. So on some varieties we want to experiment and play around with say whole bunches, whole berries, or slightly crushed ones. And then, as we've seen at the very beginning, we have several quality controls prior to that the grapes gets into the fermentation tanks.

So the first one is the quality control that we do within the vineyards because all of our grapes are being handpicked, all of them. Then we have two quality controls that go automatically, and the fourth one is on the selection table. So basically, four quality controls prior to that the grapes get into the fermentation tanks. All gravity driven, and it's small fermentation tanks of only 42 hectoliters. So we're really able to keep the small parcels separate until the very end, and then only we decide on how we're going to do the final blends.

And as you can see, all the cellars that we've just visited, they're all connected, all underground. So even where I'm standing here, that's also down here, there is a cellar. As I said, the deepest cellar that we have is about 10 meters below ground, which obviously is great so we don't have to use too much energy for cooling because everything is at a pretty much stable temperature all year round.

THIS IS EPISODE #90 OF UNDERSTANDING WINE WITH AUSTIN BEEMAN

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FTC Compliance: I currently work for Cutting Edge Selections which represents Elena Walch in Ohio and Kentucky, but this blog and podcast are completely separate from that business relationship.

Aging the Wines of Agricola Foradori

April 15, 2023

The Teroldego wines of Agricola Foradori deserve to be enjoyed when they are mature, but as Winemaker Theo Zierock of Agricola Foradori mentions, that isn’t always possible.

This is six of six long format videos featuring Theo at Foradori.

Some highlights include

If you don’t have the time to age wine, you need a new hobby
The experience of drinking a very old Teroldego that was made by Theo Zierock’s Grandfather
Don't miss this three minute video.

Special thanks:
- Theo Zierock of Agricola Foradori
- Steve Noel http://childrenofthegrape.com

Transcript:
Note: Transcript was created by a third party service and I’ve endeavored to clean up the spelling of ‘wine words.’ There are also some Italian words that I have difficulty knowing how to spell. Any persistent errors are mine alone and not Theo Zierock’s.
Or, watch the video. It is awesome.

Theo Zierock:

This idea of immediately getting a bottle aged right is a bit of an absurdity. I mean, at least that's not something that I think wine producers should be worried about. They should release the wine that it's drinkable and consumable, but it should never be at the right drinking point, because otherwise we would release the wines after 15 years, and if you are in Campania and you have Aglianico, you have to release it after 25 years, and they would all go bankrupt.

So please don't bankrupt us on this. Buy them early, keep them on the side, drink them, and if you don't have the time for it, then find another hobby. Or go to a restaurant and pay a lot of money for them doing it.

My grandfather was one of the first, if not the first, to bottle Teroldego, here. Also because in the '50s, a little bit of tourism was coming to Italy, and a lot of it was from Central Europe and they already knew from 50 years before that this was an area where the grandparents were buying some fancy wine. So on the way back, they would stop and say, "Hey, do you have... This is Teroldego place?" "Yeah, yeah." "Well, can we have some bottles?" So my grandfather would bottle and sell some.

I opened a '72 a couple of months ago. Nobody ever changed the corks, so obviously it's 50/50 chance that it's either gone. But if the cork held up, the fruit of the wine is perfect, because of the acidity, the antrocyanins. There is just a weird mix of durability in the Teroldego variety. It's a varietal thing. It's not we are particularly good. Maybe also the fact that we are on the shadier side, so more acidity historically, so that keeps a bit longer.

I was really moved, to be honest, to drink a wine from the '70s that's like that from here. And I never met my grandfather, so that's also one of these things. He died when he was 42. Everybody dies here.

THIS IS EPISODE #89 OF UNDERSTANDING WINE WITH AUSTIN BEEMAN

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FTC Compliance: I currently work for Cutting Edge Selections which represents Louis Dressner Selections and Agricola Foradori in Ohio and Kentucky, but this blog and podcast are completely separate from that business relationship.

A Guided Tour into the Cellars of Agricola Foradori.

March 14, 2023

Of course, wine is made in the vineyard, but as Winemaker Theo Zierock of Agricola Foradori shows us, it also requires interesting work in the cellar. In this video Zierock discusses the winemaking process, shows fermentation tanks, aging barrels, and a cellar filled with amphora.

This is fifth of six long format videos featuring Theo at Foradori.

Some highlights include

The new “dream destemmer”
Why there are different variations of Foradori wines under the same label.
The role of amphora in the aging process.
Don't miss this fascinating fourteen minute video.

Special thanks:
- Theo Zierock of Agricola Foradori
- Steve Noel http://childrenofthegrape.com

Transcript:

Note: Transcript was created by a third party service and I’ve endeavored to clean up the spelling of ‘wine words.’ There are also some Italian words that I have difficulty knowing how to spell. Any persistent errors are mine alone and not Theo Zierock’s.

Or, watch the video. It is awesome.

Theo Zierock:

You have some botrytis has started, but we still don't have enough alcohol or enough sugar to do. That's not cool. It will give the wine more largeness. I don't like. You see that Teroldego makes huge grapes. You just picked the smallest one ever.

I always say that we have three main vinification styles or processes. One is, the amphora vinification, which I explained then in the amphora cellar. One is the Lezer, so the light red we do, so it's 12 hours on the skins, mostly algo. There is a few red varieties that we have from old vineyards like Lagrein, Merlot, and we have some Schiava that also goes into the mix, but it's more of a stylistic vinification. So we do 12 hours on the skins max. So the moment the cab rises, we rack it, and then we press the skins. And obviously the wine on the skins is very dark, so we put it on the side, and sometimes part of it go into the Foradori. Some goes into the Lezer, but we have to be careful about the color as well there. And then after this short maceration, it goes wherever we have space.

So there's no carbonic maceration, but some stays in steel, some in cement, some goes into amphoras. It depends. It's really, it stays there until February, January, February. So it doesn't really matter too much where it stays. And the third one is what I say, the classic vinification we do, which is a pre-World War I vinification, which is the Manzoni Foradori, and the Granato. So, on the Foradori, it's one week to two weeks of maceration. On the Granato, 10 to 21 days. It always depends on the vintage. And then they go for one year the Foradori, and for one and a half year, at least, the Granato into big oak barrels, as it's always been done.

The Granato ferments in Troncau conical bins that I show you. And the Manzoni, the principle is the same, just that the big barrels are acacia, and it's only six months, and the maceration's between two and four days, depending on the vintage. If you have a denser vintage, then you might do less maceration. If the vintage is very crisp, and nice, and long, you can do longer macerations. So it always depends. But at least two days always. So, we don't have a direct press.

The grapes are weighted on the weight of my grandfather. So the scale is from 1901, so it's still the same. So you see the thing there, it's a mechanical weight. Then we process them here in the destemmer, the dream destemmer.

There is a vibrating table to separate the smaller parts. It goes down, up, and then there is a second table that sorts out the good berries. So it's actually the first year we use it. Before we only had the horizontal, simply this table with this table. So there is an added double process, which means an hour longer of cleaning the stuff afterwards. That's all it means to me. But obviously we have a easier way of separating... To make a good destemming of whole berries, or to slightly crush them. We have a better decision making on that, and we can have cleaner berries with the sorting tables. Then it goes into the fermentation cellar. So either outside here in the cement, or in here. In this case you have a...

This, basically, the case is submerged. This style there is a grid that keeps the cab underneath. So we need to do less patch downs, so we don't extract much. So we try to keep the Granato more elegant than it used to be. It used to be more extraction, more density, but it was more rustic. On the long run it took a long time to actually smooth out. With this process, and also with the semi carbonic on the whole berry, sometimes we're able to lift it up from the beginning, and it also doesn't mean that it ages less. You know what I mean? So it kind of, it's... So the Granato changed a lot since 2015, I would say.

Well, every vineyard is obviously vinified separately, and so every vineyard gets its own vat. So you have, basically, every containers contains a single vineyard, and which means that for Granato and for the Foradori, once the year has passed, we assemble the vineyards that we deem most likely. So there is Bordeaux cut to be made, which is always kind of interesting. By Bordeaux cut I mean, you have to find the balance with the different vineyards because they all keep a very different expression. This also means that we do at least two bottlings, and the first bottling and the second bottling tend to be very different. So the first bottling is the first one to come out, so it has to be the readier wine, or at least the ones that are a little bit more ahead in terms of openness, and so it's usually fresher and crunchier while the second bottling gets all the denser stuff.

So even for the Foradori itself, there are two different Foradoris, even though it's the same bottle, the same name. On the back above the alcohol, there is a little point, or two points, or no point, and depending on what you have, it means if there is no point or one point, it means it's the first bottling. If there's like two red dots on top, it means that it's the second bottling. So second bottling usually can withstand... Would evolve better, but it's also less crunchy. So right away, if it's the new vintage, and if it says... If it's one in the back, say like, "Okay, I can give, otherwise, I would keep it on site" because even the entry level one should have its time.

The cellar is very comfortable. You can smell that it's very fresh air, and the temperature is super stable because this cellar was built in a time, I think it would be the architectural golden age because you still have very massive material, so no shitty cement and stuff like this that deals badly with humility because cement and humility don't like each other. I don't know why the world hasn't understood yet because we still keep building everything with cement at the same time... So it's not as fancy as a carved chalk that is good, but you have also not only good building material, so antique building material, but you also have good engineering ideas in terms of airflow. How deep do you have to go? This is not a very deep cellar. So it means also that you don't really want too much temperature... That temperature has to be stable. It has to be stable.

But those two, three degrees give also seasonality to the wines, so it's not bad. So if the cold arrives, it's getting a bit colder here, so it's not just climatized. At the same time, it's not so deep because at the time people would die. Deep cellars meant dead grandparents. In most vineyards in South Tyrol, or in Trentino, if you ask, somebody in the family died in the cellar because you just faint, it's actually a good death. See you're too, "I'm a bit sleepy." Fall asleep because nobody's going to take you out. So they used to go down with the candle in the cellar, so when the candle would go out, they would run because it means there's not enough oxygen for you to survive.

This is the press, the leftover skin presses of the Manzoni. So, actually, there's also part of the Manzoni that was done here in Fora, which we don't declare, but who cares. It's usually very good. And here these are acacia casts for the Manzoni. And here is some more of the [inaudible 00:08:54] and the rest of the Granato 2021. And here we have Giardino. You see, for example, this is classic. Giardino [foreign language 00:09:04]. So this is the leftover... Obviously, every vineyard should go in its own vat. But then once you fill one up, and you have a little bit of that vineyard, there is always one barrel that has more things in it. And this is the stuff. So Giardino is the vineyards you've seen here. Fontansanta is a little plot of terra that we planted there. It's very small. It's never really, wow. And we have an old vineyard of Lagrein that goes into the Lezer, so that's in there as well.

It's a good moment because right now we just filled up most of the pots. So the Nosiola is mostly upstairs. The Pinot Grigio is already closed. So, the first five days of fermentation, they only have this cloth on top. So we fill them up to here, more or less. The fermentation starts, obviously, spontaneously. And at that point we do a punch down in the morning, early morning, once a day, and then we just recover it with this, and for five days it stays in this state. And then when the fermentation starts to slow down, we close them grammatically with the Enoch sleeves, and then we just stop them up. And that stays in there for seven to nine months, depending on which one. So this is Nosiola, so see the punch that would be like this? Just break the cap.

So you see some are whole berries, some are a bit squashed. It really depends on the vintage, how much we differentiate between keeping the berries intact or actually doing a little bit of... Well, we have a... I don't know how you call this. It's like [foreign language 00:11:25] very slight squeeze. It basically goes to, like a motor, like two keys then slightly squeezed them. Each lid is numbered for each amphora. So, amphora has its own handmade lid. Well, machine made, but hand, obviously, tends to fit perfectly. So we are lucky enough that we're in a region where you have a lot of good mechanical production because this is an area of the world where you produce a lot of car parts for German cars. So that kind of helps. So in order to do this, [inaudible 00:12:09] wire, just close them, and you top it up. So this was topped up in the end, and these were topped up this morning, but they already sucked it down because obviously evaporation is quite intense.

And so it consumes wine. So we have a cement vent where we do a week of maceration, and then we fill the Pinot Grigio, or the Nosiola, or the reds into this [inaudible 00:12:30] in these Enoch stands, and from there we top it up all over the year, and that's it. Then we rank it with the Enoch's cage with the pump in it. We pump them out. We assemble them in cement. They stay there for three months just to decant a bit. And then we go into the bottle, usually in July, and then in September, the wines are on the market. Well they're to be picked up, then depending on how quick each country is, they pick them up. And so, usually by January they're gone. And so we have space to then bottle the Lezer and the Manzoni, and then that is picked up, and then we're ready again for July. So, we have a flow that is dependent on movement.

THIS IS EPISODE #88 OF UNDERSTANDING WINE WITH AUSTIN BEEMAN

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