Nusserhof Vigneti delle Dolomiti Teroldego 2021

Profile & Story

Weingut Nusserhof sits directly beside the Isarco River, practically in the center of Bolzano, in the Bolzano Valley Basin, a warm pocket of Alto Adige/Südtirol with deep alluvial soils rich in eroded porphyry, ideal for ripening grapes in this northern Italian climate. Records of the property date back to at least 1788, and Elda and Heinrich Mayr are the latest generation of the family to farm this roughly 4-hectare estate; their importer, Louis/Dressner Selections, notes that the estate may only still exist because one of Heinrich's relatives was an early opponent of the Nazi occupation and died as a Catholic martyr in a concentration camp. As Bolzano's urban sprawl has grown up around it, most of it built in the 1970s, Nusserhof remains the only original piece of agricultural land not absorbed by the expanding city. The Mayrs farm two native grapes, Lagrein and Blatterle, along with a small planting of Teroldego, all certified organic by the German agency Bioland. Because regional DOC rules once denied appellation status to wine labeled with the Teroldego grape name in this area, Heinrich has kept the estate's provocative, intentionally altered name for the wine, 'Tyroldego,' truncating it further to 'T........' on current labels rather than using 'Teroldego' outright. Heinrich ferments the wine in stainless steel and ages it in small Burgundian barrels.