Roots and Altitude: How Röck Wines is Reclaiming a 400-Year Legacy in South Tyrol

In the vine-laced terraces of South Tyrol's Eisacktal valley, viticulture reaches its limit, quite literally, as the Alps encroach from the North. For Carmen and Hannes Augschöll of Röck wines, acknowledging this boundary was the first step in redefining a 400-year-old family legacy. Like so many young adults, the siblings left home to pursue their studies, hungry for horizons beyond the postcard-perfect slopes of Villanders. Ironically, it was this very distance that provided them with the clarity needed to appreciate the gravelly quartz phyllite soils of their childhood. When they finally returned to their family's estate, a mixed-crop farm their father, Konrad, had transformed into a vineyard back in 1988, they brought back with them a shared obsession for natural, low-intervention winemaking.

"During our years abroad, we came into contact with the concept of natural and low-intervention wines," Carmen explained, " we were both immediately fascinated – not just by the taste, but by the philosophy behind it." That fascination sparked a pivot; the siblings returned to Villanders not just to work the land, but to dismantle the status quo of modern winemaking. "For us, it became clear: if we were ever to return to South Tyrol, we would want to create wines that truly reflect their origin. Wines that speak of place rather than technique or standardisation," Carmen says.

Joining their father in the vineyards, the siblings encouraged him to strip the process back to its barest essentials. "Our father always had a great respect for the land," Carmen adds, "but in the cellar, he tended to 'play it safe.' He used selected yeasts, fining agents and other tools that were common practice and offered a sense of security." Through discussion, encouragement (and naturally, the occasional friction that inevitably arises when tradition meets new ideas) Carmen and Hannes persuaded their family to move toward a model of total transparency. Together, they traded old, safe methods for a commitment to organic and biodynamic-inspired principles, gradually purging the cellar of almost all interventions.

Like a philosophical horseshoe, the siblings' pursuit of the modern, natural wine trend has led them in a full circle back to ancestral ways of working. "Our parents like to say that this is how our grandfathers used to make wine," Carmen notes, "just with healthier grapes and better material today." Biodynamic winemaking itself is often attributed to the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Steiner was a peculiar character who harboured some rather kooky ideas, from burying quartz crystals under the vines to harvesting according to the lunar calendar, though his core philosophy hinges on treating nature as a living, receptive organism.

Likewise, for Röck Wines, the key is interconnectedness: "vine, soil, people, animals – everything interacts to maintain a natural balance." Carmen explains. This return to their origins is indicative of a broader realisation happening across the Alps, and indeed the world. A realisation that the most sophisticated technology at our disposal is often nature itself. In South Tyrol's wine scene, this takes the form of Convinti, a collective of 21 local winemakers dedicated to authenticity and responsible stewardship of which Röck are a part.

These are wines of high-altitude tension, grounded by the vitality of the Dolomites. But they also tell the story of a region that's embracing its past in order to write its future. On these vertical slopes, where every bottle is won through gruelling manual labour, producers like Röck cannot compete on price. But on soul? They've cornered the market.