The first LÖWENGANG Chardonnay – the 1983 vintage – almost did not make it to market. While experimenting with vinifying Chardonnay in barriques, repeated discussions occurred between the oenologist, Luis von Dellemann, and our father. They tasted the Chardonnay regularly, yet the wine tasted more and more intensely of wood. After a few months, they were on the verge of abandoning their experiment. However, Robert Mondavi, an American winemaking pioneer and at the time our father’s mentor, advised them to leave the wine in the barrique for longer. They thus learned that the smell and taste of the wood increases at the beginning, then the wood integrates into the wine and becomes less noticeable. Finally, they left the wine in the barrique for a whole year and brought the first LÖWENGANG Chardonnay onto the market in 1984.
In addition to using small oak barrels and leaving the white wines for some time on the lees, the 1980s also saw certain radical innovations in the vineyard. In 1985, our father began to greatly reduce the amount of grapes grown for the LÖWENGANG Chardonnay and to thin out the vines. He remembers: “That was an absolute taboo, almost a sin. No one was willing to cut grapes from the vines in July, as every single grape seed was seen as precious”. He broke with this tradition and saw the results in the 1985 vintage: the wine made an enormous leap forward in quality and was much more complex, intense and multi-layered. The experience brought by the LÖWENGANG Chardonnay has had a significant impact on winegrowing and cellar management – not only in our winery, but also in Alto Adige.
The name of the LÖWENGANG Chardonnay obviously comes from the Löwengang estate and its vineyards. What not many know, however, is that the name had already been used in the 1960s for a wine produced by Alois Lageder, namely a two-litre Schiava from Lake Caldaro. The production of this wine ceased in 1982. When the Chardonnay came onto the market and our father was looking for a suitable name, it was clear to him that the vineyard site in Magrè should be emphasized. This was the perfect opportunity to revive the name of Löwengang and to use it for his newly created, high-quality wines. The red and white LÖWENGANG were born.
The creation of the LÖWENGANG Chardonnay also saw the introduction of assortment lines into the winery. In the 1980s it was rare to offer several lines with different price and quality levels: only by selecting the grapes and playing with different vinification methods could different categories be defined. With the LÖWENGANG Chardonnay, our father initiated the highest of our lines and, in 1987, a third line was added – today’s Compositions. This striving for the highest quality and the idea of different lines came originally from Bordeaux: our father introduced the assortment lines to our winery in the 1980s, before this finally became common practice throughout Alto Adige in the 1990s.
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LÖWENGANG INEDITO II combines 9 vintages of Löwengang Chardonnay, which matured in barriques for different lengths of time.