My Brother Told Me About the Pixies. Mario Told Me About This.
For those of you with older siblings, like me, you know how this works: They introduce you to the cool bands (my brother told me about the Pixies), pass on their cool clothes (I loved that shirt), or let you watch that movie without Mom & Dad knowing (I saw Trainspotting way too young!) — in general, open your eyes to all the interesting stuff out there. And when it comes to wine, Dan and I get to be the older brothers — out there trying lots of things, taking it all in, and then letting you know about the best of what we find: Hey… you should taste this!
That kind of discovery takes real work: researching regions, grapes and producers, getting out on the road, meeting people, asking a lot of questions, and tasting a lot of wine. It’s a big world of wine out there, and we've always seen our job as wading through it on your behalf — finding not just what is good and tasty, but what is worthy of your attention and your dollars.
And sometimes it means having a relationships with someone we trust and respect to turns to us and says: you should taste this, I think you'll like it.
This past spring, Mario Esposito was showing me around the Corvée winery as they were getting ready for a renovation, and the building was in a state of organized chaos. He walked me through the plans: how the subterranean cellars would be opened up and connected, how the gravity flow system would work, where all the wine would eventually land. And there, among the pallets of Corvée wines stacked in the cramped temporary storeroom, were some boxes I didn't recognize. A distinctly Germanic looking crest, printed with the regal name Gaffer von Feldenreich.
“What this all about?”
“We should taste these… You will like these wines.”
Mario is the mastermind behind the whole Corvée project, a partnership that was formed with vineyard owners and brothers Mauro and Michele, and winemaker Moreno (I guess your name has to start with M to be part of that club). His background as a lawyer gave him a leg up navigating Italy's complicated real estate law — no small thing when consolidating vineyard holdings. And now he is one of the region’s biggest evangelist, working tirelessly to spread the word about Trentino’s quality. We first started working with him about 4 years ago, and Corvée has since become one of the most consistently delicious and reliably excellent producers we import. We never seem to order enough, and you never seem to have enough — which tells you everything you need to know about how good they are.
So when Mario says he thinks I'll like something, I listen.
He brought up a few bottles from the cellar and explained the story. Mauro and Michele grew up in the Cembra Valley — they'll tell you straight up that they are from Trentino first and Italy second. With deep roots and a long history in the region, they are trusted and respected members of this tight-knit winemaking community. A few years ago, a family friend passed away, leaving vineyards in the Isarco Valley, near Bolzano, without anyone to care for them. Mauro and Michele stepped in — not out of opportunism, but out of a sense of loyalty to tradition, and a genuine desire to preserve something worthwhile from simply ceasing to exist. The winery, the vineyards, and the traditions, going back to 1752, have all been preserved intact, just brought under the Corvée company umbrella — a line of wines from up the road in Alto-Adige joining the family.
While Corvée’s home in the Cembra Valley sits in Trentino — a germanic inflected part of Italy — Alto-Adige, the Südtirol, was long part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The dramatic mountainous landscape is contiguous, and the steep terraced vineyards and arduous nature of farming at altitude remains the same, but at this far northern edge of modern Italy, the dialect, the culture, the architecture, the food, and the grape varieties are all distinctly Germanic — it’s here that you’ll mostly find Sylvaner and Riesling.
Gaffer v. Feldenreich
Alto AdigeSylvaner 2024
Holy cow! From the first sip this wine just lit me up — Mario was right, I did like this! Fragrant and immediately engaging on the nose, with concentrated exotic fruit, ripe pear and savory mountain herbs. The palate is focused and generous, with a refreshingly precise quality, and a finish that lingers. The kind of white that makes you stop mid-conversation to take note of what's in your glass. Simply exceptional, and at $25, almost unreasonably good value.
Gaffer v. Feldenreich
Alto Adige Riesling 2024
The Riesling draws from the same energy as the Sylvaner, but with more vibrant and edgy minerality. This is taut and vibrant, and full of citrus fruit, orange blossom, elderflower, almond, and almost herbal with a hint of jasmine. A Riesling with concentrated richness that never loses its sense of Alpine freshness. It matches the hedonism of the Sylvaner, but will reward your contemplation in equal measure. The kind of wine that won’t wilt in the presence of a hearty meal, and rewards you with elegance and freshness.
Corvée continues to surprise me again and again, and this new addition to their lineup is not to be missed. I asked Mario if we could include these two wines from Gaffer von Feldenreich on our next shipment, and he happily obliged.