Merlot Hofstätter 2021

This wine is the valued result of a careful and exclusive selection of Merlot variety grapes, grown on the company's hillside vineyards. A proportion of the grapes is left intact, and only 35% separated from the stalks before they are transferred into barrels. After a brief period of maceration, the must is fermented for ten days at a temperature of 28 degrees centigrade. During the fermentation it remains in continuous contact with the grapeskins. Towards the end the temperature is left to rise in order to improve the extraction of colour and taste from the grapeskins. The wine then matures for six months in Slavonic oak barrels and a further six months in the bottles. The development Merlot, which has only been happening for a few years in Italy, has been going on in the perfect environment of Alto Adige for more than a century. This Merlot, which comes from vineyards situated high in the hills of Termano, has a strong, concentrated, murky ruby colour. It also has a solid fabric of thick, warm aromas, with a prevailing woodland note reminiscent of blackberry jam, wild flowers and humus, which emerges in a pronounced winey frame. After the initial rough-edged aggressiveness, the taste slowly develops, saturating the mouth. This effect is due to the wine's robust structure of tannins and solid construction, which makes it very long-lasting. This is a wine almost to chew, that becomes gentler, acquiring a softer edge, if it is aged for at least a year. Contains sulphites. Produced by WEINGUT J. HOFSTÄTTER - Rathausplatz, 7 - 39040, Tramin (BZ) - Alto Adige - Italy.

The producer

For a century, the name Hofstatter has been associated by connoisseurs with a producer of excellent wines in Alto Adige. It was Josef Hofstatter who laid the foundations on which the company has been built. He was actually a blacksmith, but he also produced home-made wine for his wife, Maria. Producing home-made wine was, in fact, quite common at the time. His love of wine came from these origins. It was not long before he abandoned his profession to dedicate himself with passion, talent and common sense to wine-making. And so, before long Josef Hofstatter wines became famous in Italy and abroad with a client base that gets larger year by year. After the death of Josef in 1942, the company passed on to his descendant Konrad Oberhofer and his wife, Luise. Konrad Oberhofer was perfectly aware of the potential of the family's vines. He was one of the first in Alto Adige to begin harvesting and making-wine separately, vine by vine, and to put these wines on the market, not as an anonymous product, but as wine with different denominations (the "Crus"). In 1959 Konrad's daughter, Sieglinde, married the wine-maker Paolo Foradori, whose family had been successfully dedicated to wine-making at Mazon near Egna for decades. With this marriage the best vineyards in Bassa Atesina were united. Termeno and Mazon therefore became the foundations on which, today more than ever, the company and the family stand. Management of the vineyards and the cellars has now been passed on to the fourth generation, Martin Foradori, whose young man's impulses and desire for innovation draw on nearly a century of experience.

Best with

This wine is excellent with roast hare, red meat, game and mature, flavoursome cheeses.

How to serve it

The wine should be served at 18 degrees centigrade in clear, transparent crystal goblets.

How to keep

If kept well, this wine has an average conservation period of five to six years. The bottles should be laid horizontally in a cool, dark, humid wine-cellar.