Alpine Wine Regions

When it comes to the geography of wine, the typical approach is to break the world of wine down into countries. Alpina Vina pays less attention to countries and more to common features of terroir such as topography and climate. This take on the Alpine wine regions brings a really refreshing perspective. In this challenging era of climate change there is increasing interest in high-altitude vineyards and those in the foothills of the Alps certainly fall into this category. What’s more, the Alpine wine regions tend to be less familiar wine-producing areas and home to many indigenous grape varieties rarely found elsewhere. Production is often limited which leads to small amounts of exports and patchy availability at best. Alpina Vina makes these stunningly beautiful regions and their remarkable wines and producers much more accessible.

To define which wine regions qualify as Alpine wine regions, we took a terroir-driven approach. We identified areas north and south of the Alps with similar climates, soils and grapes. In agreement with our experts, the list includes 9 wine regions: Trentino (Italy), Alto Adige (Italy), Valais (Switzerland), Savoie (France), Ticino (Switzerland), Valtellina (Italy), Chablais (Switzerland), Aosta Valley (Italy) and Graubünden (Switzerland).

OIV Definition of “Terroir” (2010)
Vitivinicultural “terroir” is a concept which refers to an area in which collective knowledge of the interactions between the identifiable physical and biological environment and applied viticultural practices develops, providing distinctive characteristics for the products originating from this area.“Terroir” includes specific soil, topography, climate, landscape characteristics and biodiversity features.