Lieselehof, Wines of Alto Adige

These vines are quite resistant. They are resistant to diseases. They do not have to be sprayed. Like a salad that you grow in your garden. Our winery produces almost 30.000 bottles every year. 65 % are reds, and 25 % are white. Also a little bit of sparkling, and also a bit of sweet wines. I want you to see this place. We call it our outside lab. Here you can see the label with the name of the vine, country of origin and the nursery. Here you can see other varieties, for example, Helios. Helios is a very resistant variety, and we never treat it with anything, unless it is a very rainy year. Helios is a very resistant variety, but we were not so sure of the wine. We prefer Bronner, Souvignier Gris and Solaris varieties. These varieties are not only resistant, but also noble. Souvignier Gris used for the production of our sparkling wine. It is a red variety that is used for white wine. Now you cannot see. It is like making sparkling wine from Pinot Nero. Then I brought Souvignier Gris down to Termeno, which is a place after the Lake Caldaro. Here my father in 2002 and later was one of the first 3 Italians to experiment with resistant varieties. We planted them here in Lieselehof at 500 meters a.s.l. We wanted to see if the vine is not only resistant tp diseases, but if we manage to make good wine out of it that can be also offered to clients. We sprayed 3 times in 16 years, which is almost nothing. However, for Pinot Bianco and Gewürztraminer, the classic conventional grapes, we use copper. We are classified organic. As we do not spray around here, we also have the garden. We have vegetables, tomatoes and others. So you have a high quality produce here? Yes. Here you can see we have the sparkling wine. Everything is done by hand. It is Souvignier Gris. You can also see the barriques. We use barriques for Cabernet and also Bronner to make the Julian Orange wines. We also make orange wine. Sometimes, depending on the year, we also put our sweet wines in barriques. It becomes Passito Riserva. Only in the best vintages. Our sparkling wine is made with traditional method. So we have decided to do degorgement. Usually in the traditional method you would not do degorgement, but we do. We harvest the grapes in August, when they are matured and sweet. Usually grapes for the traditional method are picked somewhat unripe. We, however, pick only the very mature grapes. The wine undergoes two fermentations, one in the stainless steel tank, and the second fermentation in the bottle. Only with the natural sugars. We do not add any artificial sugars. Then when we do degorgement, we only add a little bit of wine from the previous vintage. This is why this wine is special. Very natural. No one does it like we do. This is why there is this sign here. It is written that it is Lieselhof method. And we are below 25 mg/l with sulfites.