Between alpine pastures and palm trees
For wine lovers among the gourmets
On the southern side of the Brenner Pass, Alpine down-to-earthness blends with Italian lightness around Bolzano and Merano. It's no wonder that in sunny South Tyrol, first-class winemakers, creative top chefs and innovative hoteliers are constantly inspiring each other to achieve new heights.
No normal restaurant in the world would employ Sonya Egger as a sommelier. Not because she is incompetent or uncharming. On the contrary! The wife of South Tyrolean star chef Jörg Trafoier is a perfect hostess at their joint restaurant Kuppelrain in Kastelbell! Hardly anyone knows more about South Tyrolean wine than the restaurant chef from the Vintschgau.
She shares her knowledge just as generously as she does the treasures from her impressive cellar. As part of the wine accompaniment to the menus, she lugs one large bottle of wonderfully mature wine after another to the table during our visit. Some were bottled exclusively for her. Sometimes she serves two per course. "Try this one for comparison," we keep hearing from one of the neighboring tables. How only 50 euros for her wine accompaniment to the six-course menu can pay off remains Egger's secret. Any financial manager of a "normal" restaurant would be driven to despair by such a passionate sommelier. Because Egger doesn't keep an eye on the accounts, only on her guests. "Every glass of wine they enjoy is more enjoyment for them - and for me too," she says.
For wine lovers among the gourmets, the Kuppelrain is heaven on earth. Cellar and kitchen meet there at eye level. Trafoier, who brings almost every course to the table and explains it himself, has had a Michelin star since 2001. His cuisine - like that of many top South Tyrolean chefs - combines hearty Alpine dishes based on Austro-Hungarian roots with Italian lightness. Outstanding restaurants with first-class value for money, great wines, top hotels and charming hosts with a Tyrolean down-to-earth attitude and a touch of Italian "leggerezza" make the region on the south side of the Brenner Pass, which is criss-crossed by vineyards and apple orchards, one of the most sought-after pleasure travel destinations in Europe.
"South Tyrol has developed extremely well," says Norbert Niederkofler. The top chef, who is known far beyond the borders of Italy, has played a not inconsiderable part in this. However, like most top chefs around Bolzano and Merano, he is completely unfamiliar with airs and graces. "The initial spark for the culinary rise of the region was not provided by us chefs but by winegrowers like Alois Lageder," says South Tyrol's only three-star chef modestly. The winegrowers attracted connoisseurs with their quality offensive. Only then did the restaurants and hotels improve so much, explains the head chef of the St. Hubertus restaurant in the Hotel Rosa Alpina in San Cassiano/St. Kassian. Lageder is the pioneer of South Tyrolean quality wine. Around 40 years ago, almost only simple red wines were produced around Lake Kaltern, one of the warmest bathing lakes in the Alps. "In 1981, the legendary American winemaker Robert Mondavi encouraged me to focus entirely on quality," the top winemaker tells us over lunch on the terrace of his Vineria Paradeis in Margreid. Success was not long in coming. Lageder quickly found his own style with fresh, mineral and acidic wines. His Löwengang Chardonnay is one of the top white wines in Italy. With four lines, 40 labels and 1.6 million bottles per year, he is not only one of the best known, but also one of the largest winegrowers in South Tyrol. But the grand seigneur of South Tyrolean viticulture is intelligent and modest enough to know that he alone cannot take credit for South Tyrol's rise as a gourmet destination, as Niederkofler mentions.
Encouraging Mondavi
"Many others were involved in this - Elena Walch, for example," says Lageder. As a career changer, the architect took over her husband's family's winery, which extends around an imposing Renaissance castle near Lake Kaltern. Wines from Walch and Lageder as well as many other winegrowers and wineries can be found in practically all of South Tyrol's top restaurants. Winegrowers and chefs appreciate and support each other. "I think it's great that the restaurateurs here
around 80 percent local wines on their wine lists," says Hannes Pfitscher from the family winery of the same name in Montagna. His Pinot Nero Riserva from the Matan vineyard is one of the best Pinot Noirs in Italy. The Pfitscher winery with its tasting room that almost floats in the vineyard with a view of
Tramin and has produced outstanding wines. Walch has now handed over the reins to her two daughters Julia and Karolina. In their top vineyards VIGNA Castel Ringberg in Kaltern and VIGNA Kastelaz in Tramin, the women produce wines that perfectly express the respective terroir and bring impressive elegance to the glass. Julia Walch takes us to the Kastelaz vineyard before the tasting in her bistro in Tramin. "The location is special simply because of its southern exposure, as most slopes in South Tyrol face east or west," explains the winemaker. The sun-drenched slope with its fantastic view of Tramin is ideal for the velvety Merlot Riserva and Gewürztraminer. Walch's current favorite wine, however, is the Chardonnay 2017 Riserva VIGNA Castel Ringberg. The second top vineyard in Bolzano was recommended to us by sommelier Egon Perathoner. Just like the St. Pauls winery, "where you can buy practically anything". Elsewhere, cooperatives may tend to produce mass-produced wines, but in South Tyrol they produce absolute top wines. Wine connoisseurs pay around 200 euros for the top cuvée "Primo" from the Terlan cooperative winery, for example. Sommeliers like Perathoner, who works with star chef Reimund Brunner at the Anna Stuben in the Grödnerhof in Ortisei, are always on the lookout for insider tips, but also appreciate the quality of the major suppliers.
In South Tyrol, cooperatives also produce top wines
Brunner cooks largely with local products, but also adds lobster, truffles and foie gras to his menus in winter to satisfy the international ski clientele in Val Gardena. The chef from Klausen previously worked with Hans Haas at Munich's Tantris for three years - and has what it takes for a second star at the Anna Stuben. Nevertheless, Brunner is also modest and down-to-earth.
His tip for a meal after a shopping spree through the arcades of Bolzano is not a trendy restaurant in the provincial capital. "I always like to go
Vögele again and again," says Brunner. The inn on the fruit market with its hearty classics is simply an institution. Just like the Zur Rose restaurant in the center of St. Michael Eppan, where Brunner completed his training. And with Herbert Hintner, one of the best teachers in South Tyrolean cuisine.In 1995, the chef was awarded his first star, which still adorns the small Restaurant C to this day.
We would come back for every single course on his menu: For the boiled beef aspic presented as carpaccio. The brook trout tartare. The divine gray cheese ravioli made from pear flour. And, of course, for the juicy, tender and crispy venison fillet, which Hintner would never cook sous-vide because "I don't make jam".
Like Hintner, career changer Anna Matscher, who went from masseuse to star chef, is one of the established top chefs in the region with her restaurant Zum Löwen in Tisens.
Two-star chef Gerhard Wieser, who cooks up a storm at the Hotel Castel and, as co-editor of the standard work "So kocht Südtirol" (This is how South Tyrol cooks), is also in the same league as a down-to-earth connoisseur. "Dumplings are my favorite dish," the celebrity chef reveals in his second bestseller, the "Südtiroler Knödelbuch" (both books are published by Athesia-Verlag).
"You can find dumplings in every restaurant and hut in South Tyrol - and they are almost always good," says Andrea Fenoglio.
In his restaurant Sissi, however, the charismatic star chef serves something finer. Fenoglio is something like the personification of the "South Tyrolean kitchen melange", although Fenoglio tends more towards Italy. His Settepiatti menu with seven small, sometimes very unusual dishes is a feast for gourmets who like to be surprised. His squid tagliatelle on pea puree with its fascinating interplay of earthy, spicy, sweet and maritime-salty notes, or his waxy Gamberi Rossi under a potato cream with fine slices of block-dried truffles are worth a visit to Fenoglio's wonderfully old-fashioned restaurant in Merano's old town.
While the son of a Piedmontese father and an Austrian mother has long been part of the culinary establishment, his regular guest Christoph Huber is one of the most promising newcomers. In the Zur Blauen Traube restaurant in Algund, which opened in 2019, the young Merano native cooks consistently local dishes in a relaxed inn atmosphere, but with enormous creativity and at the highest level of craftsmanship. No wonder: Huber also trained with Norbert Niederkofler, among others ...
