Thomas Niedermayr

The blood of the nature is wine: Thomas Niedermayr

In Trentino Alto-Adige there is a vineyard owned by Thomas Niedermayr that in the past 25 years tries to produce wine following the rhythm of nature

There is a wonderful estate in San Michele ad Appiano, in the mountains of Trentino Alto- Adige in the North-East of Italy called Hof Gandberg. In this paradisiac corner Thomas Niedermayr, following the father’s footsteps, is doing his best to produce biological wine.

This area of Italy is featured by fresh, spicy and mineral and important wines that enclose in the bottle all the route that comes from the vineyard to the glass.

This is the peculiarity of Thomas’ wines: the strong link to the territory, to the mountains.

Credit: Matt Hickman(www.mattthelist.com)

Let’s make a step behind. Twenty-five years ago, Thomas’ father wanted to produce wines in a natural way avoiding all the chemical products and letting the vineyard grow in a perfect balance with nature. The result was a heaven in the mountains where wild ducks, chickens and hens run in the vineyard and in the vegetable gardens of Hof Gandberg estate in an astonishing harmony of biodiversity and nature respect.

Credit: Matt Hickman(www.mattthelist.com)

When you drink wine you are not only tasting an alcoholic beverage when you drink Thomas’s wines what you have in the glass is just the end of a circle, the final goal of a football match. Yes, because Niedermayr vinery owns all the process of the wine, from the ground – that must be healthy and well-fertilized – through the plants and grapevines cares until the fermentation in the casks.

As the Niedermayr family says “Nature is the best shape of quality”: that means that to produce excellent wines, it takes a high level of health of the territory in which the grapevines grow.

In the last century, a lot of diseases killed the European vineyards. Those fungal diseases didn’t destroy the vineyard of America. Why? Because in the millennia these vineyards became resistant to these diseases: it’s the result of evolution. Thanks to this study Thomas uses in his vinery PIWI vineyard, a plant that needs no chemical help against the disease, but it survives only thanks to the power of… evolution!

Thomas believes in the natural wars of Nature: where the mushrooms lose, his vineyard wins and the wine could be drunk, and you can feel it by tasting his creations.

Credit: Matt Hickman(www.mattthelist.com)

So just some tips about Thomas’s wine. If you go to Hof Gandberg you can’t miss the 2016 Bronner, a fresh charmeur made with the Bronner vineyard. When you drink it, you can feel both Mediterranean scents and mountain herbs. Souvignier Gris is another excellent product you must-have in the glass, a white wine made with young and red energetic grapevines – with this wine you really can taste the vitality of the wind that blows in this area, I’m not joking! But if you like red wine you must try the 2016 Gandfels: it follows a spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, after three weeks they softly press the peelings to take only the best flavours and then they put all for one year in a durmast cask and another year in a steel cask: long work, good wine!

Credit: Matt Hickman(www.mattthelist.com)

When you walk in the vineyards of Thomas, you can also find rye, zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes and other vegetables. Please pay attention. You can also step on the eggs of his hens!

Anyway, you must drink and savor the wine of this unusual family. Visit their website http://www.thomas-niedermayr.com/ and if you can go to visit them, you’ll discover a different world of products and you’ll be proud to shake the hand of a pioneer or maybe you can say “Bio-neer”!