The Wine List: Put This Unassuming Italian Wine Region On Your Radar

Find a person a secret bottle of wine and they’ll drink well for the night; find them an entire secret region and they’ll drink well for the rest of their lives. Though we may have mangled the maxim a bit, places are lurking out there that are beloved by sommeliers and yet are under-the-radar for average drinkers. Find them, and you tap into both an amazing deal and instant respect from the wine pros.

Exhibit A is Italy’s Alto Adige. Start in historic Verona and head north: Lake Garda is to your south, the Dolomites to your east and the Alps tower to the north. And, in the middle: a near-perfect valley, with impossibly steep slopes for grape growing, crisp alpine airs to capture freshness and acidity and winemakers who combine Teutonic efficiency (you can literally see Austria) with Italian bravado. Welcome to your new favourite wines.

1. Alois Lageder Terra Alpina Pinot Grigio, $22.50

Wait—we’ve brought you halfway around the world… for pinot grigio? Yes, but Alto Adige might produce the best PG in the world: wines with texture, grip and mineral-y freshness unlike any of their more mass-produced cousins from elsewhere in Italy. And Lageder, the closest thing the region has to a rock star, farms its grapes biodynamically and with infinite care—the wines are widely available and, seriously, there’s not a bad one.

2. Girlan Pinot Bianco, $26.30

In this region people generally care more about pinot bianco than pinot  grigio, and why shouldn’t they when wines like this emerge? Frankly, this wine recalls how similar Okanagan wines are to those from Alto Adige—great natural acidity and clean fruit delivery. It channels a crisp green apple that’s just at the peak of ripeness, with a lovely balance between bite and taut flesh (but not in a weird way). Remember four letters—PB from AA—and you’ll rarely go wrong.

3. Elena Walch Schiava, $36

Alto Adige reds are dominated by two varieties: the dense, dark lagrein (lah-grine) and the light on its feet schiava (skee-ah-va), which might become your new crunchy go-to grape. Think of wild strawberries put on a smoker and you’ll get the sense of the allure of this wine. It’s juicy all day long but with a hidden streak of ballast that makes it anything but a lightweight. If it’s warm out, the wine can take a small chill; during the colder months, it can saddle up to a grilled flank steak with equal aplomb.