Agriculture connect the generations in our family. We have been wine growers, dairy farmers, forest owners and obviously apple growers. Fascisms deprived the family of my parental grandfather of their farm in Bolzano, but not of their dedication to cultivation.
Anton "Toni" Egger (1921-2001) decided to go back to school after WWII gathering further knowledge about agriculture at the so called "cabbage school". This gave him the possibility to work as estate manager the possessions of the abbey Neustift in Bolzano.
This work and his wife's legacy made it possible that the dream of their own farm became true. In 1959 Anton and Maria Werner became the owners of 3 ha in Salorno - Salurn in the South of South tyrol. Gravensteiner and Jonathan varieties were planted in the drained ground and raised to palmettes.
Changes are often preceded by discussions, which Anton and his son Franz (*1956) had a lot of, before the latter leased a part of the orchard in 1994 and farmed it organically.
After the sudden death of Anton in 2001 Franz took over the entire farm. When partly regenerating our orchard in 2013 we decided to exclusively plant fungus-resistant or robust varieties, which enables us to reduce some phytosanitary treatments and still pick sun ripened Pilot, Topaz and Gold Rush in autumn.
The majority of our apples is marketed by the cooperative BioSüdtirol, but elderflower, quinces, stone and berry fruits serve our own consumption and as inspiration for our cider variations.