In Italy's autonomous region Southern Tirol, charming hospital doctor Marco Antonelli gets a mutual crush on ambitious, German-educated young cellar master Franziska Gasser, daughter of his grumpy patient, who still rents any contact, even medical care, with Italian-speaking 'invaders' in the former Austrian region. Both families oppose a mixed relationship, burdened by a bitter war time past. Franzi only returned to the ancestral vineyard to help out after her ingrate, domineering father Josef Gasser was incapacitated indefinitely in a car accident and is diagnosed with an incurable ear affliction, yet only her mother Theresa could make him accept help to urgently bring in and process this year's harvest, resenting any modernization or experiment, while Franzi intended to apply her oenology studies on a much larger estate, probably abroad. Mother agrees they may have to lease to estate to someone, the prominent candidate being Marco's father Antonio Antonelli, whom Terese however resents. Franzi meets the charming Italian and digs in grandfather's souvenir box which leads to the bitter family traumas, notably an ambush that killed Marco's grandfather in the 1960 riot, and Teresa's own secret.