2020 Pacherhof Kerner: the review of a salty and elegant white wine
The 2020 Pacherhof Kerner is an immediate, frank, and exquisite wine that immediately fascinates you as soon as you smell it. The aromas are clean, sharp, and beautifully chiseled, and it offers lots of fruit, aromatic herbs, and flowers. It is not a wine that hides, acts mysterious, or tickles you with an exaggerated complexity. On the contrary, it focuses on sunny pleasantness. It has a lot of pulp, flavor, and herbaceous arrogance that smooths out all the fruity arrogance. Overall, it is balanced and ready, but it can easily be stored in the cellar for 7-8 years with this splendid acidity.
How is it produced?
The vines are at high altitude, between 600 and 700 meters, and grow in Neustift, in a basin in the middle of the Dolomites. Vineyards are covered with grass and cultivated with the utmost respect and attention: no herbicides or pesticides. Only copper and sulfur are used for the treatments.
After the harvest, soft pressing, spontaneous fermentation, and aging in steel and large oak barrels.
Organoleptic characteristics
The nose is splendid and aromatic, deep, expansive, and rich in tropical fruit, hay, spices such as mace, anise, cinnamon, a thousand flowers, and alpine herbs. Still, this crazy minerality acts as glue. The excellent temperature range between day and night has imparted the grapes’ finesse, subtlety, and great aromatic richness.
It is smooth, salty as a rock, and full of taste on the palate. It opens very fruity and warm, then softens with citrus and ginger and closes with almonds and honey. The rhythm is excellent: acidity and minerality interact amiably with a pleasing roundness that expands the gustatory boundaries and is not limited to the usual juice.
Among the Italian Kerners, it is one of the most elegant and evocative and does not just do the homework but goes beyond its innate aromaticity and develops a crazy acid charge.
Price
19-20 euros: an excellent price, calibrated for an amazing South Tyrolean white wine, already pleasant and ready, but which is not afraid of aging, thanks to the mineral fiber given by the Dolomites.
