Kuen Hof - Alto-Adige, Italy
Kuen Hof’s Lahner vineyard. Photo from Kuen Hof
ZEN, PERFECTION & VINES IN ROCK*
We are not sure if there is such a thing as the perfect wine, but from time to time some special wines make a stunning case for perfection - when you simply are fully satisfied by what is in the glass, when you taste and know you cannot ask for anything more or anything else.
Simon Pliger is following in his parents footsteps, while also reaching out in discovery. E&R Wine Shop photo.
Hopefully you're familiar with the Kuen Hof wines - artisanally produced and always lovely. But getting back to perfection, even in a challenging year, the Kuen Hof wines are amazing. So about in a wonderful year- like 2019? Easy to surmise. Simon Pliger told us about their 2019’s “Vintage 2019 has a high mineralic freshness and lower alcohol” - leaving us thinking that’s a very classic sounding year.
On our last visit with Peter, Brigitte and Simon Pliger we had a great walk and vineyard exploration and received updates and news from son Simon, while later owner/co-winemaker Brigitte Pliger poured samples for (in a glass pitcher!) from their older acacia barrels.
Our little history with Kuen Hof: we visited them at their family farm and winery in Brixen multiple times, cajoled and begged them for a full seven years before they begrudgingly agreed to find a few cases for us back in 2013. Today, even with our short history with their own 200 year plus family history, we feel like family!
Peter, a former Zen student, is committed to working his rock-strewn slopes just 30 miles from the Austrian border, sustainably. You will nearly always find Brigitte and Peter just by their house and winery- at work in their vineyard. That's where their wines are "made", and they are universally considered among the very finest in Europe. Multi Three Glass award winners, I've called them the Dauvissat of Italy, as their hand-crafted wines exude purity, definition, complexity and pleasure. Their wines, from in the shadows of the Alps, are aged in their heritage-site registered 12th century cellar- its a story of greatness and success you could not make up. The ground is all quartz and granite- vacation land for vines...
Their location just south of Brixen, is in a small enclave of a few scant miles of scattered vines in the northernmost part of Alto-Adige, it is a magical terroir. The place adds mightily to the wines and each one is pristine, fresh, mineral driven and loaded with complexity. Here are descriptions we've seen and or written about their wines- "bone dry, cut like a sword, pristine,
In an average year Kuen Hof produces about 2500 cases of wine, only a fraction makes it to America. The wines are from their nearby vineyards, as they describe the terroir “Our vineyards are placed in the beautiful Valle Isarco in the heart of South Tyrol. It’s an area with an ideal climate for white wines: 300 sunny days a year along with a rough mountain climate with temperature fluctuations of 20°C (68°F) between day and night during the ripening period. The characteristic of the soil is a loamy sand with slate and quartz phyllite among the main rock types. These factors form the base for our four fresh, strong and very mineral white wines.” Their vineyards are in the area called La Mara, with vines in the Lahner, Gasteiger and Nafen-Teis zones. All the wines are made in larger old Acacia barrels and stainless steel tank and after five to seen months on the lees are bottled.
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When in stock, wines from this producer appear below. Click each wine for more detail.