Wines

COLLIO FRIULANO

When my father died on 23rd July 1981, the grapes were already plump and in a few days would begin to take on their true colour. They were my grapes, the same type which, at six years of age, I found myself crushing by turning the handle on my grandfather’s cast iron wine press, something which made me feel like a real grown-up. I wasn’t to know that the entire smallholding had been planted up almost entirely with Tocai, and that this could potentially have been a problem ...read more...

COLLIO MALVASIA

“La” Malvasia... I can only imagine this soft and soothing wine as a feminine entity. The feminine (linguistically speaking) nature of the name came about purely by chance. It is said to come from an ancient locality in Greece, and was brought by the Venetians to Friuli and to Istria, from where the adjective “Istrian” derives, and which distinguishes the variety from many other types of Malvasia found in Italian vineyards ...read more...

COLLIO STUDIO DI BIANCO

On Easter Monday 1989, when I completed the purchase transaction for five hectares of land on the south-east slopes of the Ruttars hill, I had a powerful sensation that something good was going to happen here. Giorgio, the grower who owned the land before me, hacked down the woods in order to till the land (and who tells of how he had to go the bank for a loan to buy his first spade) and planted it out with various kinds of white grape varieties ...read more...

COLLIO CHARDONNAY

Up until 1987, before I acquired the Ca’ della Vallade vineyard, the idea of “terroir” for me remained a seductive yet rather vague term. Before that time, I had only worked with grapes from the south-west sector of the hills which run from the Colle di San Giorgio at Brazzano to Monte Quarin near Cormòns. I remember my apprehension when I was hoping for good news about my investment and began to get a close look at the new wines ...read more...

COLLIO SAUVIGNON

Legends claim that this variety arrived from France in the early 1800’s as part of the dowry of a French noblewoman who married a local gentleman. I think it’s nice that it was given as part of a pact of love. It may well be that this is how the story of the Friuli Sauvignon developed separately yet in parallel with the Sauvignons of its area of origin ...read more...

COLLIO ROSSO & ROSSO DELLA CENTA

Rosso della Centa is a 100% Merlot which originates from a small vineyard situated on the south-west facing slopes of the San Giorgio hills in Brazzano. This patch of land of around one hectare is used to grow red grapes, the majority of which are Merlot. In this splendid field, the terrain is typical of the Collio, as a result of the fragmentation of alternating strata of marl and sandstone which are the bedrock of our local hills ...read more...

MILLEPONCHE

50 million years ago, where we now find our hills which are made from a type of rock substrate called “Ponca”, there was once a fairly shallow marine lagoon on whose bed a complex of sedimentary rocks known as Cormòns flysch was laid down. This is an original geological formation which features alternating strata of marl and sandstone laid down in segments whose depths range from a few inches to over a foot. This gave rise to a terroir which is possibly the only one of its kind in the world. ...read more...

MILLEUVE

This wine was not conceived as a commercial proposition, but arose from technical requirements stemming from the company policy which affects Borgo del Tiglio’s entire production; that is to give consumers the highest expression of both the grape varieties and the vineyards. In practical terms, this means that each vineyard batch is vinified separately. Those barrels which eventually go on to make up the superior range are selected from separately-held batches during the refining process. So, those wines - which for practical reasons during processing are impossible to keep separate – along with what is left over after the selection process, are used as the basis for the Milleuve cuvée. ...read more...

CONTRADA TENNA

In the year 2000 I headed down to the Piceno area in the Marche region in order to study a vine grafting technique, and came across an abandoned property whose owners were letting go of the land.

It was love at first sight. What had really hit me - apart from the beauty of the area - was not so much the strong points of the Montepulciano but its apparent defects. I asked myself if a wine so dense and rich could also take on a certain elegance. It was like going back in time, a new challenge just like those we had faced with Tocai (Friulano): to convert the rough into smooth, violence into strength ...read more...