Visitors to the headquarters and winery of the Josef Hofstätter estate find themselves in the main square of a bustling large village with the municipal hall, bars and the village church. The winery and offices are accommodated in a grand 16th century edifice, originally built for the Austrian Imperial post coaches and it also housed the ‘Schwarzer Adler’ inn belonging to Martin Foradori’s great aunt. Josef Hofstätter made his first wines in the inn’s cellars. His nephew Konrad Oberhofer and wife Luise took over the estate in 1942 and it was he who recognised the potential inherent in vineyards. He was the very first in South Tyrol to keep separate the grapes harvested in individual sites and name the resulting wines after the respective vineyards. Konrad Oberhofer’s daughter Sieglinde married Paolo Foradori in 1959. Paolo comes from an old-established family of winegrowers in the Adige Valley and owned vineyards in superb locations on the eastern side of the valley opposite Tramin. Since then these vineyards have been administered together with those on the Tramin side of the valley in the family company’s headquarters which still bears the name of the estate’s founder, Josef Hofstätter.