A decade of St. Michael-Eppan Appius

Filippo Bartolotta partook in the first-ever full vertical tasting of Alto Adige cooperative St. Michael-Eppan’s Appius to discover how the philosophy behind this “super cuvée” has evolved since its inception in 2010. There’s some regions and some wineries though that have been proven to be on top of this game for quite some time. One of these regions is surely Alto Adige, and one of these cellars is St. Michael-Eppan winery, which this year celebrated the 10th edition of cellar master Hans Terzer’s super cuvée. Founded in 1907, St. Michael-Eppan now works with some 320 vignerons across 385 hectares, producing 2.5 million bottles per annum – but it is Terzer’s “dream wine”, a blend of white wines personally selected by him, that was the focus of this tasting. The vineyards selected for this wine come partly from the steep, calcareous hills at the bottom of the Mendola mountain, adding a saline refreshing tension to the wines, while others sourced from the red porphyric volcanic soils around the Bolzano valleys bring a mineral and smokey touch. The cuvée is made of four varieties, each vinified separately in barrique and tonneau and then blended after a year in inox tanks where the wine rests with its fine lees for three years, before then continuing its maturation in barriques/tonneau. The 2019 blend, from which around 3,000 bottles were produced, was: Chardonnay (60%), Pinot Gris (15%), Pinot Blanc (13%) and Sauvignon Blanc (12%). The name ‘Appius’ comes from the Ancient Roman origin of