Alto Adige’s wine industry is characterized by small-scale operations and versatility. Around 5,000 individual operations with around 10,000 employees operate in the 52 communities capable of carrying out commercial winegrowing, out of a total of 116 communities in Alto Adige / Südtirol. That makes good organization all the more important.
Today, the large majority of Alto Adige wines (around 70%) are produced by the province’s fourteen cooperatives. In contrast to other regions, cooperatives in Alto Adige are today among the leaders in quality development. The first winery cooperative in Alto Adige / Südtirol was founded in 1893.
Quality and strict selection are also the foremost principle of the Südtiroler Weingüter [the Alto Adige Association of Private Wineries], whose current thirty-eight members produce around 25 percent of the province’s annual total. Owners of these wineries are personally involved in both the vineyards and the winery, and they also press grapes from contract suppliers.
The province’s newest wine association is the Freie Weinbauern Südtirols [the Alto Adige Association of Independent Winegrowers]. Its eighty-two members have committed themselves to the “château principle” and, in so doing, they create some of the most individual wines filled with character, although unfortunately only in small quantities (around 5% of the total of Alto Adige wines).
Winetypes