The Novacella Abbey, one of the oldest active wineries in the world born in 1142, presents the latest innovations of the Insolitus line, born in 2020 and dedicated to experimentation.
" After the excellent feedback we received last year from both enthusiasts and industry critics, we did not stop and we continued the work we are carrying out in this new space with great enthusiasm and curiosity " he explains. Werner Waldboth, sales manager of Abbazia di Novacella. " The reasons that led us to create the Insolitus line continue to be very current: we want to experiment in a coherent way with the philosophy of the Abbazia di Novacella new ways that allow us to pursue the path of sustainability by adapting to the climate changes in progress, not never forgetting the desire to create wines that are complex and strongly rooted in our territory ".
With the 2019 vintage, the Pinot Bianco Quota2 is back, which enhances the great peculiarities of this vine, which in Alto Adige has long found a terroir of excellence to express itself and which Novacella breeds in the northernmost vineyard of the region. " A particularly lively acidity, a low alcohol content and fresh and delicate aromas, these are the characteristics of the new vintage " says Celestino Lucin, oenologist at Abbazia di Novacella. " The climatic changes underway have led Pinot Bianco to express itself with great finesse even in the North. Characteristics that emerge clearly in a balanced vintage like 2019 ". The vineyards of Pinot Bianco Quota2 Alto Adige DOC are located at 650 meters above sea level and have their roots on soils composed of permeable morainic deposits with South-West exposure. " The very low yields per hectare, around 50 hectoliters, the density of the plant that reaches 6000 plants per hectare, the fermentation and maturation for a year in barrique, only one third new, have given us a Pinot Blanc that is successful to blend elegance and structure, also having an excellent aging potential ".
This year's novelty of the Insolitus line is called Sylvaner Ton . " Clay, ton in German, is the material with which the amphorae are built where our Sylvaner ferments and rests for a long time" continues Celestino Lucin. " They represent an ancient and ancestral tool for preserving the wine with which we wanted to compare ourselves to understand what characteristics they could bring to a wine with character and personality like Sylvaner. ". From vineyards located at 630 meters above sea level with southern exposure and almost 50 years of age, Sylvaner Mittelberg IGT is born from the blend of two vintages, 2018 and 2019, which fermented in amphora and then stopped there for maturation for 24 and 12 months respectively. Then, before being released, the wine rested in the bottle for another 8 months. " We preferred not to carry out maceration on the skins of the grapes because we wanted a more delicate olfactory tone to emerge, where the fresh fruity notes could be combined with the mineral ones, further intensified by the rest inside the amphorae: the final result is very complex and full of personality ".
Also this year the wines of the Insolitus line are produced in a few examples - 1500 bottles for the Pinot Bianco Quota2 and 1000 for the Sylvaner Ton - and distributed exclusively in the Horeca channel.
" The desire to look to the future through this real open construction site continues - concludes the director Werner Waldboth -. It is a path that we are more and more happy and convinced we have undertaken and that will reserve us further surprises ".
