A half-hectare vineyard at an elevation of 1,000 meters isn’t exactly what you’d expect from the director of the South Tyrol Wine Consortium. Eduard Bernhart took on the project nonetheless. In 2016, he purchased a suitable plot of land in the Upper Vinschgau Valley; in 2018, he planted Riesling and Pinot Noir—“perhaps a naive or idealistic decision,” he jokes. The first vintage was produced in 2021, and the experiment… Today, the experiment is, above all, one thing for him: fun. For the 181st episode of “Auf ein Glas,” I actually met Eduard Bernhart not in his role as a winemaker, but as an ambassador for South Tyrolean wine, caught between a masterclass and a “High Wine” event at Dresden’s Bülow Palais. Since August 2018, Eduard Bernhart has been the director of the South Tyrol Wine Consortium. But the fact that, in addition to communications, marketing, and advocacy, he also grows his own grapes and makes wine is not just a side hobby for him. It grounds him—and gives him a firsthand look at the work of winemakers. “You can’t lead me astray all that easily,” he says. He doesn’t just know how to talk about wine, but also what it means to plant a vineyard and make wine.
Things get even more exciting underground. South Tyrol lies at the intersection of different geological formations. Around Bolzano lies the reddish Bolzano quartz porphyry, an ancient volcanic rock. Not far away is the Mendel with its dolomite rocks, while the Vinschgau Valley is dominated by Eastern Alpine shale formations. The last Ice Age, 20,000 years ago, shaped today’s valleys and left behind, among other things, moraine soils on the slopes. For the winemaker, this diversity means that each vineyard must be considered on its own. Altitude, soil, and exposure—south, north, east, or west—all influence the resulting wine.
86 single-vineyard sites push quality to the limit
It is precisely these differences that will be more prominently displayed on the label in the future. Since 2024, single-vineyard wines have been permitted in South Tyrol. 86 individual vineyards were designated for this purpose. The process took more than a decade: historical land registries were analyzed, winemakers, producers, and oenologists were consulted, and geological profiles were created. The system was submitted to the Italian Ministry in 2019 and finally approved in 2024.
A single-vineyard designation is subject to stricter rules. Yields must be reduced by up to 25 percent compared to the standard DOC maximum yield, and a maximum of five approved grape varieties is permitted per vineyard site. Single-vineyard wines have been given their own logo: a grape in a drop of wine. Already in the first year, six percent of the total production was designated as single-vineyard wine; by 2025, that figure had risen to eight percent. The system is deliberately not intended to be final: In the coming years, it will become clear how well it is accepted and whether further developments are warranted.
