From the atlas
Tenuta Kornell
At A Glance
Producer: Tenuta Kornell Country: Italy Region: Alto Adige (South Tyrol) Village / Appellation: Settequerce, South Tyrol DOC Grapes: Pinot Noir, Merlot, Lagrein, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Gewürztraminer Key Wine: Marith (Pinot Noir) Vineyards: 11 hectares (Brigl-family sites confirmed by regional wine body) Elevations: 270 to 900 metres
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The Producer
The Brigl family acquired the Kornell property in Settequerce in 1927, a village in the South Tyrol wine district at the northern edge of Italy. The property itself has a documented winegrowing history extending more than 700 years. When Florian Brigl took over management in 1996, he inherited that long record and added a specific ambition: to make a serious Alto Adige Merlot that could sit beside the wines of Pomerol. Winemaker Marco Chisté joined him in the cellar to pursue it.
The estate has two distinct wine programmes. On one side, a broad white range drawn from the varieties that have always defined South Tyrol. On the other, a red programme concentrated on Merlot and expressed most clearly in Marith, a single-variety Pinot Noir sourced from the Mazzon district in Caldaro.
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Place
Alto Adige sits in Italy's far north, bordered by Austria and Switzerland, and the wine district carries dual heritage: the labels often appear in both Italian and German, and the appellation is legally South Tyrol DOC. Settequerce lies in the valley floor near Terlano, a few kilometres south of Bolzano.
Kornell's vineyards spread across three sites: Settequerce itself, Appiano-Monte to the south, and Kampenn to the north, with the regional wine body's confirmed Brigl-family holdings sitting between 270 and 550 metres. The Marith Pinot Noir draws from a fourth location: Mazzon, a named subzone within the Caldaro commune east of the Adige river, where west-facing slopes reach from 350 to 900 metres. The altitude range across all sites, combined with 2,100 annual sunshine hours and reliably cool nights, keeps acidity intact through full ripeness. The South Tyrol DOC covers the estate's full red range, including Marith.
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Soil And Site
Porphyry is the dominant rock on Kornell's steepest terraced parcels. A hard, dark volcanic stone, porphyry absorbs heat through the long sunny days and radiates it slowly through cool Alpine nights, extending the ripening window for both red and white varieties. The gravel and clay soils in the Mazzon district, where Marith's Pinot Noir is grown, behave differently: they drain quickly, warming early in spring and encouraging even root growth through the season. Guyot-trained vines at a density of 6,000 per hectare work the hillside rows. Kornell manages its vineyard floors with cover crops, clover, mustard, and cereals, and uses organic fertilisers to build humus over time.
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Story
The Brigl family's entry into Kornell was not as founders but as custodians. The estate records trace wine production on the property to the medieval period, and the settlement of the site goes back approximately 2,000 years. Brigl ownership since 1927 is the modern chapter in that sequence.
For most of the twentieth century, Kornell operated in the way many South Tyrol estates did: growing local varieties, working the steep terraces, selling into a regional market that valued volume over name recognition. That changed when Florian Brigl took charge in 1996. He narrowed the estate's focus and elevated Merlot to the centre of its red programme, not because Merlot was a South Tyrol tradition, but because Brigl saw what the long sunny days and cool nights could do to the variety on these soils. The regional wine body describes what followed as the pursuit of a South Tyrol Super Merlot.
Alongside that Merlot work, Marith emerged as a named Pinot Noir cuvée, sourced from Mazzon and marketed through export channels including the Swedish state monopoly.
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Vineyards And Cellar
Kornell farms the 11 confirmed Brigl-family hectares across Settequerce, Appiano-Monte, and Kampenn, with the Mazzon parcels in Caldaro providing the Pinot Noir fruit for Marith. Vineyard management centres on soil health: cover crops hold the steep hillsides between rows, organic fertilisers replace synthetic inputs, and gentle mechanical cultivation avoids compaction on the porphyry terraces.
In the cellar, the approach for the broader red range is extended oak ageing. Fermentation happens in stainless steel, followed by 14 to 18 months in a combination of small oak casks and larger oak barrels, and then nearly ten further months in bottle before release. Marith follows a different path: fermentation in large oak vats, then seven months in large oak casks, with shorter contact time giving the Pinot Noir less toasted wood influence and more open fruit. Marco Chisté makes both calls.
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Wines
The Kornell range divides cleanly into whites and reds. Whites include Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, and Gewürztraminer, varieties well established in South Tyrol's valley and hillside appellations. They are built for the high-altitude, high-acidity character of the region: lifted aromatics, firm acids, and the kind of dry fruit clarity that comes from long, cool ripening.
The red range opens with Lagrein and Cabernet Sauvignon before arriving at Merlot, which Florian Brigl has positioned as the estate's leading wine over the past three decades. Kornell's Merlot spends 14 to 18 months in mixed oak. It is not a quick-turn red: the ageing programme is designed to produce depth and the bottle weight that Brigl associates with Pomerol.
Marith is the named Pinot Noir, South Tyrol DOC, from west-facing Mazzon parcels in Caldaro. It uses a lighter oak regime than the Merlot, with fermentation in large wooden vats and seven months in large oak casks. The gravel and clay soils at 350 to 900 metres in Mazzon give the wine a different physical starting point from the porphyry sites: the clay adds mid-palate weight, and the altitude keeps the acidity sharp enough to hold the fruit in shape through ageing.
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In The Glass
Marith opens with red fruit: cherry and dried cranberry with a faint floral lift that comes from the altitude in Mazzon. In the mouth it is medium-bodied and slender rather than full, with tannins that are fine-grained and even rather than firm or drying. The oak is present but quiet after seven months in large casks, giving a faint spice note without dominating the fruit. Acidity is the thread that holds the wine together: it keeps the mid-palate fresh, integrates the tannin, and extends the finish into something longer than the wine's weight suggests. The overall register is cool and precise: Alto Adige Pinot Noir rather than anything warmer.
The broader reds, including the Merlot, sit at a different point on the spectrum. The 14 to 18 months in mixed oak pushes toward fuller fruit and more grip, with the South Tyrol sunshine giving the ripeness and the cool nights holding enough acidity to prevent the oak from flattening the wine.
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A Bottle To Understand It
Start with Marith. It is a South Tyrol DOC Pinot Noir from Mazzon in Caldaro, a district with west-facing slope exposure, gravel and clay soils, and vine rows at 350 to 900 metres. The wine ferments in large oak vats and spends seven months in large oak casks before release. In the glass it is medium-bodied with fine tannins, a dry red-fruit core, and a clean, slender finish pulled along by the altitude acidity from Mazzon. Marith is made from Pinot Noir grown in Mazzon.
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Anecdote
When Florian Brigl took over at Kornell in 1996, Merlot was not a South Tyrol signature. The grape had its canonical home in Bordeaux's Right Bank, in Pomerol and Saint-Emilion, where producers coaxed plush, mineral, iron-tinged wines from clay and gravel soils. Brigl looked at his porphyry terraces in Settequerce, the 2,100 hours of annual sunshine, the cool Alpine nights that held acidity through September, and decided that the variety had a case to make in Alto Adige. He set the ambition openly: not simply a Merlot from the South Tyrol, but something the regional wine body would go on to describe as a Super Merlot, a wine measured against Pomerol as its reference point. That comparison required three decades of incremental work in the vineyard and cellar, a commitment to a grape that had no precedent in the estate's 700-year record, and a willingness to be judged against some of the most argued-over wines in France.
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Final Word
Kornell is an Alto Adige family estate with deep roots in a place that has been farmed for centuries. Florian Brigl's modern contribution is a clear editorial choice: elevate Merlot to the centre of the red programme and let Marith, the Pinot Noir from Mazzon, carry the estate into international markets. The white range and the location in Settequerce keep the estate anchored in South Tyrol's broad character. The Merlot ambition and the Marith cuvée are what make it specific.
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Sources
- https://www.kornell.it/en
- https://www.altoadigewines.com/en/winegrowers/tenuta-kornell
- https://wineguide.wein.plus/tenuta-kornell
- https://trentinoaltoadigewine.it/en/kornell/406-marith-pinot-noir-2024-kornell-estate.html
- https://www.systembolaget.se/produkt/vin/9212701/
- https://www.kornell.it/en/products/marith
- https://www.munskankarna.se/sv/vinlocus/tillfalligt-sortiment-13-mars-2026/marith-pinot-nero-2024