Mals / Malles Venosta, Italy

Bio Hotel Panorama & Bio Brennerei Steiner (Familie Schenk-Steiner)

A four-star organic hotel on the main road through Mals at 1,025 m in the Upper Vinschgau, and the oldest certified organic hotel in Italy — it took EU organic certification in 2002, the first Italian hotel to do so, and has been a member of the BIO HOTELS association ever since. The business began in 1959 as a family Gasthof founded by Karl and Anna Franziska Schenk, became a hotel operation in 1998, was extended in timber-frame construction in 1999 and was awarded its fourth star in 2023. It trades as 'Biohotel Panorama der Dorothea Schenk-Steiner', an Einzelunternehmen (sole proprietorship) with VAT IT01256880210 — the EU VIES register returns the holder as the natural person SCHENK DOROTHEA. Eight room categories are published, from a 22 m² Bergseite double at €70 per person per night to the 40 m² Sternensuite 300 with a rotating bed and a 20 m² covered terrace at €136, board included ('Halbpension+': organic breakfast buffet, afternoon cake and tea, a four-course choice menu in the evening). Rooms use solid timber, clay plaster, cork or wood floors, organic bed linen and mains-isolation switching; there are no carpets anywhere in the house. The wellness area is deliberately small — outdoor Finnish sauna, Sanarium, steam bath, infrared cabin, plunge and Kneipp pools, a relaxation room — it is free to guests and sells no treatments, and the hotel has no pool of its own, sending guests instead to the municipal Sportwell baths in Mals, which it pays for. THE DISTINCTIVE ASSET IS A SECOND BUSINESS UNDER A SECOND VAT NUMBER. Bio Brennerei Steiner is an organic fruit distillery run by Friedrich Steiner, the senior of the family, who has been distilling since 2006. Its published range runs to 13 quality fruit brandies, 10 grappas, around 20 liqueurs and a gin, made from certified organic or wild-harvested fruit — Vinschger apricot, Palabirne pear, quince, rowanberry, persimmon — with the grape marc coming exclusively from the hotel's own wine suppliers. It holds an excise code (IT 00 BZX 00234 R) and an AB-Cert organic control number (BZ-42781-AB), it has been decorated at the Destillata awards, and it sells on its own domain, biobrennerei.it, under VAT IT01646210219 registered to STEINER FRIEDRICH. The two businesses share one telephone number, one email domain and one reception. COMMERCIALLY THE TWO HALVES DO NOT MEET, AND NEITHER DOES THE STACK. The hotel books through the HGV's Booking Südtirol widget (property 10231), takes enquiries through a separate widget from mtsonline GmbH in Vintl, runs its newsletter and its on-site tracking on ADDITIVE, sells gift vouchers through aries.creative's ac-smart.voucher system, and runs the site itself on WordPress and Elementor built by Huber Web Media in Mils bei Imst, Austria — five vendors, none of them joined to another. The distillery sits outside all of it: its shop is a hand-built order form with an age gate, no cart, no customer account and no payment rail at all, settling by bank transfer or by cash on collection for amounts under €1,000. There is no member area, no guest app, no points scheme and no repeat-guest rate anywhere in either business, and the benefits the hotel does fund — free entry to the Sportwell baths, reduced entry at the Curunes pool in Graun, reduced tennis and reduced Schöneben and Haideralm lift tickets — are negotiated and honoured by hand at the desk. The family's own history page states that in 2026 Georg Steiner takes over the running of the house, working alongside his mother Thea; his partner Julia is in the business, and Friedrich remains with the garden and the still. The garden itself is part of the product: at 1,050 m it carries more than 70 herb varieties, 20 partly forgotten tomato varieties and a range of berries, largely irrigated with collected rainwater, plus an orchard at Agums, and it supplies the kitchen daily. What is not grown comes from named Vinschgau organic farms the hotel lists individually. The restaurant is open to non-residents every evening and at Sunday lunchtime.

Hotel website ↗