The grapes from which this Pinot Nero is obtained flourish on the hillside estate of Barthenau at Mazon. The vines are about thirty years old. 75% of the grapes are separated from the stalks and the rest are poured into the barrels with the stalks intact. Fermentation last for eleven days, during which time the must always remains in direct contact with the grapeskins. After two careful decantations, 75% of the wine is matured for a year in large oak barrels, and the rest in small oak barrels. After the wine has been blended it is bottled and subjected to a further year of refinement in the ancient cellars of the Barthenau estate. Riserva Pinot Nero is noted for its superior character, a result of carefully gauged research, the results of which are easy to recognise at every stage of tasting. It has a very well-balanced style that is mellow and elegant, without an edge. It has a thick, deep, grainy ruby colour and an extremely typical, sweet and persuasive woodland aroma of small fruits and marasca cherries. It is warm, coherent, rounded, well-bodied and therefore fine to taste. On the palate it is velvety, almost affectionate, with an elegant level of refinement that gives this wine a truly international character. This character has the potential to become even more impressive if the wine is laid to mature for two years. Contains sulphites. Produced by WEINGUT J. HOFSTÄTTER - Rathausplatz, 7 - 39040, Tramin (BZ) - Alto Adige - Italy.
THE REVIEW OF PINOT NERO RISERVA MAZON HOFSTATTER BY LUCA STROPPA
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 red meat, game and mature 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 seven to ten years. The bottles should be laid horizontally in a cool, dark, humid wine-cellar.
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