Castel Juval Unterortl, Venosta Valley, Sud Tirol 

When we first tasted these wines last year we immediately decided we had to buy them – only to be told there was no wine to be had, so a lot of pleading was needed for this shipment. It’s a tiny winery, with just four hectares of vines, now organically farmed (in conversion), clinging to granite soils over gneiss outcrops at 650-820m. of altitude, northwest of Bolzano and near to the border with Austria.

This is an extreme terroir - catnip to Stone, Vine & Sun - where steep, south-facing slopes allow sunny exposure to the vines but also where meagre, mineral soils, cool breezes and big diurnal changes of temperature provide perfect conditions for the production of steely, highly aromatic wines.

The estate was owned by the legendary climber Reinhold Messner and the land now belongs to his son Simon, but farming and winemaking is now undertaken by Raphael and Christine Burki. Raphael, a graduate in oenology of Geisenheim University, previously worked as a winemaker in Switzerland and New Zealand.