The wine regions of the Alpine arc Wine is traditionally understood through political geography. Alpina Vina takes a different view. The Alps form a coherent mountain landscape that crosses the boundaries of France, Switzerland and Italy — and within that landscape, a remarkable family of wines has evolved over millennia, shaped by shared geology, climate, indigenous grape heritage and a cultural connectivity that predates modern nation states.
To identify which regions belong to the Alpine wine category, we applied a terroir-driven approach — drawing on the definition established by the OIV in 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." Applied to the Alpine arc, this definition points unmistakably to nine regions: Savoie (France), Valais, Chablais, Ticino and Bündner Herrschaft (Switzerland), and Valle d'Aosta, Alto Adige / Südtirol, Trentino and Valtellina (Italy).
Together these nine regions encompass approximately 26,000 hectares of mountain vineyards, over a hundred indigenous grape varieties and eight distinct linguistic traditions. They share altitude, heroic viticulture, climatic precision and a cultural depth found in no comparable wine region on earth. Production is often limited, exports are sparse and availability can be patchy. Alpina Vina exists to make these regions, their wines and their producers accessible — and to make the case, rigorously and without compromise, that Alpine wine is one of the most important and under-recognised wine categories in the world. 11:48 groupchat
