Bachelor in Enogastronomy in Mountain Areas

This program developed together with chef Norbert Niederkofler, provides you with the interdisciplinary skills you need to work in the field of healthy, sustainable mountain enogastronomy, respecting biodiversity, building on local traditions and products, and focusing on food innovation in a circular economy.

Tradition (respect for values, old processing methods, and the territory), creativity (using natural products to get the most out of their flavors), honesty (valuing the work of producers by integrating them into a virtuous circle that produces economic, social and cultural growth), innovation (using different techniques to extract the most flavor from the raw material and presenting it as naturally as possible on the plate) and sustainability (integrating processes into a circular system that simultaneously develops cuisine, the economy, and culture) are the values that guide this program.

This trilingual program aims to train food and wine experts capable of elevating food to the status of culture and giving it a new identity, on the basis of Michelin-starred chef Norbert Niederkofler's Cook the Mountain philosophy. An innovative concept that aims to rethink economic and social development by investigating the relationship between production, product, territory, and consumption to create a cuisine that is a catalyst for cultural processes to spread a model of sustainable development. The raw materials, which are often difficult to find in an impervious context such as the Dolomites or other mountain areas, are made more valuable through the recovery of traditions and the rediscovery of biodiversity with the final result of elevating food to culture and giving it a new identity. The effect is to contribute to the creation of a transversal research laboratory on gastronomy that investigates the values that, on a global level, culturally and socially unite the people who live in the mountains as a resource, passion, challenge, heritage to be protected, as well as to encourage a new way of experiencing the relationship between cuisine and mountains that combines ethics and conviviality, environmental sustainability and territorial development.

In this context, food and wine experts who graduate from this program take on the role of "emotional educators", capable of promoting a new lifestyle.

The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano was founded in 1997. Our university has a strong international outlook, as testified by its multilingual courses (German, Italian, English, and Ladin) and the high number of students and teaching staff from abroad.

The taught modules on offer and our research projects are linked to international and inter-regional networks. For example, within the Euregio project, we are partnered with the universities of Innsbruck and Trento, and we are committed to reaching top quality standards.