Ansitz Dolomytos Sacker

Natural slopes to the bottle

The cellar work runs downhill before it reaches the bottle. Norbert Marginter, winemaker at Ansitz Dolomytos Sacker in Ritten, keeps that gravity-led method on the Renon plateau, where the estate sits above Unterinn on steep, south-facing porphyry and schist soils. He came to the property in 2013, buying it at auction after its founding era ended, and chose continuity rather than a reset. The estate had been conceived as a pentagonal place, with agricultural science, Greek mythology, and biodynamic thought folded into its architecture. Marginter’s work is less about translating that idea into language than keeping it practical: vineyard selection, indigenous yeast, long lees aging, and a cellar that gives the wines time without forcing them forward. He is proprietor as well as oenologist here, a combination that makes the decisions close-range. The hand that tends the slope also answers for the barrel.

Three hectares, native yeast, long lees

The estate works from 3 hectares on the Ritten plateau and 0.5 hectares in Tramin, cultivated through organic and biodynamic methods certified since 2016. The vineyards sit at 500 meters, with warm hillside exposure and enough mountain air to slow the ripening. Marginter’s selections bring together Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Riesling, Pinot Bianco, Assyrtiko, Agiorgitiko, and other Italian and Greek varieties, a cross-Mediterranean grammar carried over from the estate’s founding idea. In the cellar, grapes ferment spontaneously with the estate’s own yeasts. Skin contact runs 10 to 14 days; aging lasts at least 24 months on full lees. The vessels matter. The wines mature in 150-liter, cigar-shaped French oak barrels, stored in the tunnel rather than in a display cellar. Some bottlings extend the method further: Amphora joins the 2014 and 2016 vintages, with one part held in glass and the other in earthenware. The catalogue stays narrow, with limited-production cuvées and vintages in the cellar dating back to 2000.

The tunnel sets the pace

The room that matters most is underground. The Dolomytos Tunnel runs 70 meters into the hillside and holds a steady 10–13°C, giving the barrels a cool, even season of their own. Tastings here are described less by spectacle than by concentration: small, quiet, cellar-led, with the estate’s pentagon plan and Panta Rhei motif giving the place its particular severity. The setting does not separate philosophy from work. The tunnel is where temperature, darkness, barrel size, and lees contact become part of the method. Above it, the vineyard faces south; below it, the wines move slowly enough to keep their shape. Marginter’s most useful inheritance is this discipline of restraint, repeated again and again until it becomes the house style. Athos Rot, Dolomytos Weiss, Skythos, and Amphora carry that tunnel time into bottle.