Stevie Kim & Willi Stürz tell about Epokale, a 100-point wine.

The place hosting us today is certainly unusual for a wine-themed chat: nonetheless, the Monteneve mine, in the province of Bolzano, is closely linked to a Gewürztraminer that has earned a place in the Olympus of wines due to its extremely high quality achieved since the very first vintage. The 2009 vintage, in fact, received 100 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, the first among Italian whites to hit this milestone. We are talking about Epokale with Willi Stürz, in a wonderful setting with a broad view over the Ridanna valley.

Willi, can you explain to us why we are here?

For thirteen years now, we have chosen to preserve and age our Epokale wine in a place different from the usual cellars, to give it time to mature for several years in a controlled environment, with constant temperature and humidity. The high altitude helps to stabilize the wine's characteristics: at two thousand meters above sea level, even the air pressure changes and this creates a unique set of conditions, which we have experienced almost by chance.

The success of this wine is the result of an intuition, then, a winning idea that led you to choose this mine to store your bottles. Isn’t this all quite challenging?

No, not at all. The logistics of transport to the mine operates once a year, after all, when we store the most recent bottles and at the same time retrieve those from the vintage meant for the market. It should also be noted that the effort is certainly rewarded by the result!

Our wine cellar is located about 250 meters above sea level, which is 1700 meters away from the tunnel where we store our wine. To reach the storage site, we have to travel approximately three and a half kilometers inside the mountain, on a special little train.

The mine is not just a storage site but also a real museum. Can you tell us about it?

This location certainly has cultural and historical value, in addition to its practical use. The museum located here tells the story of how extraction work was carried out over the last thousand years, until the mine's closure around forty years ago. The Cantina Tramin is also visitable, with guided tour paths and tastings included.

Going back to the 100-point vintage of Epokale: what characteristics did it have? And the other vintages?

That year, we were very lucky with the Traminer. We produced a very concentrated wine, late harvest, from October, which was then brought to market in 2017. We continue to prefer this type of harvest to give the wine a high residual sugar level, which differentiates it from drier “colleagues.” The residual sugar, combined with storage in the mine, offers a slow, deep, and complex maturation to the wine.

Initially, we produced a little more than 1000 bottles, while the most recent vintages range from 2500 to 3000 bottles; among all the vintages, only that of 2014 was difficult and led us to let the wine mature longer, after careful evaluation. In that case, the acidity was higher and the residual sugar lower, so we are curious to understand what its evolution will be.

What about the wines from 2020?

Until that vintage, we have all the wines in the mine. We are now preparing to bring the 2015 bottles to market, which have been resting in the tunnel in the mine environment, where we find 11°C and 95% humidity.

Cheers to those about to uncork one! To keep following the latest news from the world of wine, we look forward to seeing you at the next podcast.