Sauvignon Blanc – 2024

2024 Sauvignon Blanc from Cantina Kurtatsch with elderflower and salt

The 2024 Sauvignon Blanc from Cantina Kurtatsch is a dry regional wine from South Tyrol, pressed from many small plots around the village. It is not a single-vineyard wine from one hillside and not an oak-influenced white wine, but a clear Sauvignon from a steel tank.

The 2024 Sauvignon Blanc from Cantina Kurtatsch is a South Tyrolean white wine from the Selection line, bottled in 750-milliliter bottles. The vines grow on steep slopes between 450 and 600 meters on deep gravel over dolomite limestone, and are harvested by hand into small crates. The label states 13 percent alcohol, but the aromatics remain as cool as the evening katabatic winds dictate.

Elderflower, gooseberry, and a trace of salt

Straw yellow with green reflections in the glass, the grape variety announces itself immediately on the nose with elderflower, green gooseberry, and a hint of exotic fruit.

On the palate, it is both juicy and lean, a combination that is rarely found. The lively acidity keeps the fruit on course and leaves it no time to become broad. In the finish, that salty trace provided by the limestone soils remains, making the wine seem longer than its weight would suggest.

Dry-vinified as it is, only a hint of sweetness remains in the background. This makes it a white wine for the second and third sip.

With green asparagus and young goat cheese

Green asparagus with melted butter finds its match here, because both bring the same herbaceous edge and neither drowns out the other.

Fresh goat cheese, oven-baked trout, and a handful of garden herbs are just as well-suited. It even maintains its freshness against a spicy curry, as the acidity cuts through the heat. Serve at 10 to 12 degrees in a medium-sized white wine glass, because the floral aromatics close up if too cold.

Those who prefer their South Tyrolean aromatics more opulent will find them in the aromatic Gewürztraminer, and those who prefer something quieter should reach for the Pinot Grigio.

Why a regional wine needs many hillsides

A regional wine does not bear the signature of a single slope, but rather gathers many small plots and assembles them into an image of the entire area. Each site contributes something that the neighboring plot lacks. What one slope provides in fruit, another compensates for with acidity.

After the manual harvest, the grapes are pressed and remain cold on the skins before the must is drained. This cool maceration brings out the floral notes from the skins without picking up the bitter substances.

Fermentation is temperature-controlled in steel tanks, after which the wine rests on the fine lees. Oak does not interfere here, and that is why you hear the soils and not the barrel in this glass. Cellar master Erwin Carli sets the pace for this.

An evening when no one gets up

The bottle sits in a cooler on the table, next to a board with cheese and a loaf of Schüttelbrot. Outside, the wind falls down from the mountain, just as it does over Kurtatsch every summer evening.

Drunk young, this vintage shows all its tension, but it easily handles two to three years in the bottle. Further wines from the south of South Tyrol can be found in the Cantina Kurtatsch range. Freshness that needs no explanation.

Origin, values, and awards

• Origin: Wine from Italy
• Growing region: South Tyrol - Alto Adige DOC
• Grape variety: Sauvignon Blanc
• 13.0% alc./vol. alcohol
• 6.1 g/l acidity
• 2.5 g/l residual sugar
• Awards 2024: 91 points James Suckling, 90 points Wine Enthusiast