2018 Franz Haas Pinot Grigio Vigneti delle Dolomiti IGT Italy

World-famous already for his reds, we discovered Franz Haas’s Pinot Grigio in Alto Adige last year. But with the buzz this wine generated at VinItaly and its crazy-good quality-to-price ratio, its days under the radar are numbered:

It draws you in instantly with a fresh aromatic bouquet of acacia, sage, and hay aromas, followed closely by honeyed sandalwood notes. The palate follows suit, with the welcome addition of juicy lime blossom, lemon, and savory almond minerality on the progressively round finish. This is not your average Pinot Grigio from the Veneto plains—rooted in limestone soils and rugged alpine conditions, this complex high-altitude white is the ultimate expression of the grape. 

It made a splash among the somms at VinItaly last year—where there’s typically never a shortage of Pinot Grigio in addition to the thousands of other Italian wines on offer—but our colleague Neil luckily found it first (even before James Suckling).

We hate tearing ourselves away from our gorgeous host-city, Verona, during the rare precious windows of free time when we’re not tasting. So, we weren’t exactly thrilled when Neil told us he had fallen in love with a shiner bottle of Pinot Grigio he’d tasted at an after-party and had booked us all to go taste with the producer the next day—especially when we learned the winery was a 90-minute drive up into the alpine slopes of Alto Adige. 

Then Neil mentioned the bottle was from the inimitable Franz Haas, who we already adored for his high-altitude reds (and who The Wine Advocate calls “one of the most interesting and innovative producers in Northern Italy”). We left our grumbling in the flatlands as we eagerly wound our way up the Dolomites to see what Franz could do with Pinot Grigio. 

Neil’s instincts were spot-on. We learned Franz’s vineyards are planted between 350 and 1,150 meters above sea level—the highest in the region due to the family’s shrewd foresight and subsequent acquisitions. That altitude, along with four months of extended lees-aging is to thank for all that alpine zing and rounded complexity. Sipping his intensely fragrant 2018 Pinot Grigio out of tank, we apologized to Neil for momentarily doubting him, and promptly took out our checkbooks. 

Franz’s name is synonymous with Alto Adige, and his estate wines have become the paragon of cool-climate, high-altitude terroir in Italy. According to The Wine Advocate, “much of what defines Alto Adige wine (the pristine mountain aromas, focused mouthfeel and bright acidity) was first brought to world attention by Franz Haas.”

Since its founding in 1880, the estate has remained family-run, passed down from father to son through generations with every firstborn Franz Haas. The Franz we met (#8) has managed to carry his family’s quality torch and then some (we particularly love the label designs by artist Riccardo Schweizer, whose distinct style comes from his time painting with Picasso, Chagall, and Cocteau). 

By the time we got back down into Verona, word had gotten out about where the Wine Access crew had snuck off to, which didn’t help keep interest low in this killer (soon-to-be-91-point) wine. We secured enough 2018 Franz Haas Pinot Grigio Vigneti delle Dolomiti to offer today, but our English buyer friends headed to the source the day after we did and may have locked in the rest, so when it’s gone—it’s really gone.

• Fruit Intensity
• Oak Intensity
• Body
• Sweetness
• Acidity

• ABV 12.50%
• Enjoy right away
• Drink Up
• % Pinot Grigio
• Serving temperature – 45°
• Stelvin