In the shadow of the Dolomites, where the Alps meet the Mediterranean and the vineyards climb the steep, sun-drenched slopes of the Adige valley in a landscape of quite breathtaking beauty, the monks of Muri-Gries have been making wine since the twelfth century. The ancient Benedictine monastery in Bolzano is one of the most historic and revered wine estates in all of Italy — a place where centuries of accumulated knowledge, a profound respect for the land, and the particular genius of Alto Adige’s terroir combine to produce whites of a purity, complexity, and longevity that are among the finest expressions of Italian white wine. Alto Adige — the South Tyrol — is Italy’s most northerly wine region, a bilingual, bicultural corner of the country where Italian and Austrian traditions meet and where the combination of Alpine altitude, intense sunshine, and the cooling influence of the mountains produces white wines of an aromatic precision and mineral depth that are quite unlike anything else in Italy. Terlano, the village from which this wine takes its name, is one of the appellation’s most celebrated and sought-after wine communes — famous above all for the extraordinary longevity and mineral complexity of its whites, which are among the longest-lived white wines in the world. Pinot Bianco — Weissburgunder in the local German dialect — is the variety that Terlano does perhaps most beautifully: full-bodied and elegant, with a creamy texture and a mineral depth that speaks directly of the ancient porphyry and quartz soils of the hillside vineyards. The 2023 is a wine of real distinction: intense, complex aromas of apple and citrus on the nose, with nuts and white pepper spice that add a lovely warmth and complexity. On the palate it is full-bodied and elegant, with a creamy texture, harmonious salinity and minerality, and a long, fresh finish of real persistence and beauty. At £23.99, it is Alto Adige Pinot Bianco at its most characterful, most complex, and most completely itself.