Arlberg Weinberg
It is always wholeheartedly welcomed, when comes a cold and snowy winter, to rejoice and gather together with friends and family in the warm atmosphere of a ski getaway. Even better then when such holidays can unroll at the Post Lech over the first week of December and where the hotel’s own Bemelmans Bar and long-time iconic Emostube are set to welcome a few select guests for Lech’s Arlberg Weinberg.
Coinciding with the opening of the winter season, and filled with the paroxysmal charm of the valley at an early Christmas time, this series of events revolving around exceptional wines, but also winemakers and wineries is the perfect opportunity to bring together an international and eclectic crowd of connoisseurs and masters of all things of beauty.
A typical day during Arlberg Weinberg within Post Lech’s walls is made-to-measure for its curious and enthusiastic guests, making the most of the hotel’s vast and diverse reception spaces as well as of the presence of knowledgeable hosts, speakers and winemakers — some of them having crossed the Alps in order to speak about their lives’ work and history.
After an introductory apéritif of brut or rosé Schloss Gobelsburg or Italian sparklings to honour this week’s Italian guests, the party is led from the comfortable Hubertus Halle’s library and roaring fireplace to the front of the hotel and its dream-like stuben… as well as strategically closer to the wine reserves.
The latter are mastered by sommelier Miroslav Kalinic and his team, who like elegant birds of prey have an eye for every single detail to reach and maintain perfection over the course of the evening — and whether on the table or backstage.
Evenings in the Emostube: Where Wine Tells Its Story
It would indeed be hard to find a better-suited place to host a series of exceptional dinners than the ornate wood-panelled rooms of Post Lech’s Emostube, located at the heart of the building and within its oldest chore, lined with plush banquettes and presided over by their mighty Tyrolean ceramic stoves.
From the enfilade of green-shuttered windows encircling these rooms, one can gaze out at the night hovering over the village’s main street, its bewitching decorated fir trees twinkling at a distance. However beautiful the landscape, the main protagonists of the evening are to be found within the guests’ glasses, lined up to perfection on Post Lech’s instantly recognisable pale pink tablecloths and delicately filled with successive exceptional vintages as the evening unfolds.
The dinners, each expertly served over five equally heavenly courses, offer the opportunity to taste and comment on around seven vintages of the same wine, all of them telling a different story as well as expressing both its past evolution and potential for future years.
Voices Behind the Vintages
The presence of the winemakers themselves renders those debates all the more passionate, alive and personal — as smelling, swirling and tasting those wines could not have been wholly understood without their own words, anecdotes, or recollections of each harvest’s particular history or climate.
Beyond learning about the technicalities of each wine’s vinification or ageing, they are also the opportunity to tell family stories and to recall the identity of the land and terroir the grapes come from. From there, each tasting or dinner inevitably turns into a more global narrative and reflection, as well as the occasion to convoke culture, heritage and craftsmanship — all key components of the life of an important wine, as well as of the one of its maker.
Alternating between specialists, authors, and the winemakers themselves, those conversations inevitably unravel late into the night, sometimes punctuated by spellbinding surprises — such as a Château Haut-Brion 1976 brought at the end of a meal and accompanied with decadent plates of spaghetti al pomodoro, or an impromptu jazz solo by fellow guest and trumpetist Till Brönner.
At Post Lech during Arlberg Weinberg, the series of in-house events is co-hosted by Fine Club, both a members club and magazine run by passionate founders. Always pushing boundaries in the sometimes-traditional world of wine, they seem to be permanently on the lookout for the world’s best and most intriguing nectars.
This year, they invited some of the best contemporary Tuscan winemakers to reach the Arlberg mountains. As ambassadors to a young and dynamic generation in the craft and trade of wine, they also represent their family heritage and name at the world’s most beautiful tables and cellars.
On the first night, Sophia Antinori shared the family’s deep link with its terroir at Tenuta del Nicchio through three Jéroboams and four other vintages that were welcomed by an eager and full room.
On the second day, Giovanni Mazzei also developed the family history through two wines and their vintages: the beautiful Chianti Ipsus followed by Siepi.
Ending the trilogy, Benjamin Franchetti of Tenuta di Trinoro presented in a vertical tasting an impressive selection of its own vintages, going as far as 1998 and presenting its highly praised 2019 Trinoro, a powerful and extremely well balanced wine that unanimously proved once opened why it deserved its international recognition.
But around the table and within the deeply convivial atmosphere of the Emostube, it was rather the living material of the wine itself, as well as the words that captured each vintage’s energy and story that made each tasting a fascinating and grasping journey through time and culture.
Paired with both the traditional culinary excellence and unique creativity one is always certain to find back within Post Lech’s walls, wines seemed to reveal themselves even further — set in Vorarlberg’s snowcapped landscape and far from their native Tuscan hills.
Blending the perfected and ancestral art of Austrian hospitality with young and entrepreneurial winemakers, this year’s Arlberg Weinberg has once again proved the infinite number of delectable stories that can be told through wine and its luminaries.
[Cécile Christmann is an architect, curator and writer based in France. She has specialised in the worlds of hospitality and design and regularly works with select brands or hotels on room curations or diverse content productions. She is also a keen writer on her favourite subjects, ranging from the automotive world to architecture, arts and culture.]
