Editor’s Note

This will be the last Wine of the Week for September. I’m heading off on a two-week adventure through Switzerland and Austria, and I can’t wait to see and taste what I discover along the way!

You can follow my travels on Instagram and Facebook, where I’ll be sharing plenty of wine, food, and adventures from the road.

I’ll catch you back here in October. In the meantime, open that bottle you’ve been saving and enjoy it, or try a new wine.  Life’s too short to keep wine waiting!

Wine of the Week: Kellerei Bozen Puntscheit Kerner 2024

Sometimes there’s that bottle in the wine fridge you keep glancing over.

You think about opening it, but then your hand reaches for something familiar. Something you know. And that bottle stays right where it is.

That was my relationship with this bottle of Kellerei Bozen Puntscheit Kerner 2024 from Alto Adige, Italy.

Finally, I looked at it and said, “This needs to be drank.”

So, What Is Kerner?

If Kerner isn't a grape you know, you're not alone.

Kerner was created in Germany around 1930 as a crossing of Trollinger and Riesling. It was named for German poet and physician Justinus Kerner who wrote famous drinking songs. Now he has a grape named after him!  The grape inherited some wonderful traits from Riesling, including its bright acidity and aromatic personality, while developing a character all its own.

Kerner has found a particularly happy home in Alto Adige/Südtirol, that mountainous region in northern Italy where Alpine and Mediterranean influences collide. Here, Kerner thrives in sunny, higher-elevation vineyards, particularly in the Isarco Valley. Alto Adige Wines notes that it does especially well in gravelly soils at elevations of roughly 550 to 800 meters.

Those elevations are important. Warm sunshine helps ripen the grapes during the day, while the mountain environment helps Kerner retain the acidity that makes the wine feel so alive.

Kellerei Bozen Puntscheit Kerner 2024

The grapes for Puntscheit Kerner come from steep, sunny slopes in the Isarco Valley and Renon, at approximately 600 to 800 meters above sea level. The wine is fermented and matured in stainless steel specifically to preserve its freshness and crisp character.

What I like about Kerner is that it gives you some of that aromatic excitement you might expect from Riesling, but it doesn't simply taste like Riesling. It has its own personality. I think it has hints of a Gruner in it too, although no relation.

There’s freshness and minerality. There’s fruit, peach, golden delicious apple. There’s that lovely aromatic quality. And underneath it all is enough acidity and structure to keep everything from becoming too fruity or heavy. 

What Do You Eat With Kerner?

This is a very food-friendly white. 

I'd happily put it on the table with seafood—especially shrimp, scallops or a simple piece of grilled fish. I can also see it working beautifully with chicken, vegetable dishes, a mushroom risotto or even some slightly spicy Asian fare.

Or forget the food altogether.

Chill it, pour yourself a glass and enjoy it on the deck while we're hanging onto these last weeks of summer.

The Lesson in the Bottle

This bottle reminded me of something I tell people all the time: don't always reach for what's familiar.

It's easy to grab Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio or Riesling because you know what you're getting. But there are thousands of grape varieties out there, and sometimes the bottle you've been passing over is exactly the bottle you should be opening.

Kerner may not be a household name, but maybe that's part of the fun and exploration.

So the next time you're staring into your wine fridge and there's a bottle you've passed by one too many times, grab it.

It needs to be drank.