Vine Farmer Day: Schiava from Alto Adige. Sort of
Jace and his brother Kaden have received a few importer features with us over the past two years or so, and rightly so. Jace began his wine career, so to speak, as an enthusiastic and curious consumer with us at Gordon’s some fifteen years ago, and as his passion has blossomed he has created one the most thoughtfully curated list of Italian imports. Based in the Boston-area, this is a small importer who is focusing on building understanding of Italy's emerging leaders amid a landscape that has become incredibly dynamic. Jace speaks with a quietly focused affect about his wines, one that speaks to the intimate knowledge of not just the wines, but where they are from and who they are from.
Jace-We think in decades, not years. We take risks and have introduced a number of growers with success to the USA. We don’t chase fads and market trends, seeking wines that will stand the test of time from people who trust their terroir and have a clear and unwavering vision.
Yes, the world needs market trends in wine. And then the world more importantly needs even more people like Jace and Kayden who will take that jaded consumer and show them that there really are special wines out there. Showing that there are wines that are special, unique, made by Vine Farmers that are focused on the soil of their vineyards, focused on the health of the microbiome, focused just on what their land can do to create honest wine that simply speaks to its origins. This first wine is one that champions all of those things. Schiava from the Dolomites from a third generation vineyard undergoing a renaissance in quality often using traditional methods that have gone out of fashion.
I do champion cooperative wine growers. Some create great products. This is the story of the opposite side of the coin. The label on the website lists the wine as "Ca...l" and the grape as "Schi..a" — deliberately censored. The crossed-out label conceals the winery's home vineyard, which has been in the Gojer family for generations and is legally not allowed to appear on the label. The wine is named Campill after the locality, but can only be sold as IGT. When Martin Gojer took over in 2008, the family’s 4 hectares of grapes were converted to practicing biodynamics, and are all worked by hand on hillsides that tractors cannot be used. It’s a labor of love.
Schiava (also called Vernatsch in German) is Alto Adige's most historic red variety — native to the region since at least the 16th century. For decades it was overcropped and mass-produced for the cooperative system, resulting in thin, undistinguished wine. It fell deeply out of fashion. Martin calls Campill a "liberated slave" because it is a wine that restores full dignity to a variety that was violated and mistreated by the South Tyrolean system.
With less than a full hectare under vine, this Schiava is harvested on mostly whole stems then aged in neutral wood for 12 months. The final profile of the wine is alpine, saline but with dark red fruits, dark spice, herbs, and mountain minerality. Like many high elevation reds, these wines appear light in color but are serious in structure and length. I equate these roughly to Alta Piemonte wines of Schiava and Nebbiolo. Highly-perfumed, light in appearance, serious in tannin structure, and 100% worth exploring.
