Venezia Giulia Ribolla Gialla IGT Riserva 2010 (750 ml.) Gravner

THE WINE

The Ribolla Gialla Riserva by Gravner is an iconic orange wine from Friuli Venezia Giulia, a fresh, savory, and mineral wine, with a rich and surprising bouquet. Made from pure Ribolla Gialla grapes, the harvest ends with botrytized grapes. It undergoes a long maceration in buried Georgian amphorae, with indigenous yeasts and without temperature control. After pressing, it returns to the amphora for another 5 months before starting aging in large oak barrels, where it remains for 6 years. Bottled without clarification and filtration, it rests for an additional 7 years in the bottle. The bouquet is layered with notes of aromatic herbs, resin, beeswax, candied fruit, apricot, peach, and wilted flowers. On the palate, it is well-structured, rich, fresh, intense, mineral, and complex.

THE ESTATE

The absolute protagonist of Italian wine and its recent history, Francesco Gravner, better known as Josko Gravner, is a winemaker whose name is intimately linked to the Collio Goriziano, which he himself has helped to make famous worldwide. A journey that begins far back, when as a teenager, Josko started vinifying grapes from the vineyards planted around his home. The use of steel first, and then barrique, marks a path that spans much of the '80s and '90s, until the turning point and the introduction of Georgian amphorae in the cellar, from which his wines derive their name. Josko's viticulture, over time, has stripped away every technicality, becoming natural to the point of being uncompromising, the result of careful work in the vineyard, where for over twenty years, every synthetic product has been banned. The over thirty hectares of vineyards, most of which are owned, are located in various areas of the municipality of Oslavia, in the province of Gorizia. At an altitude ranging from 150 to 270 meters above sea level, the vines enjoy optimal exposures and grow in typically calcareous and marl soils. In the vineyard, a rigor and method are applied that hark back to the oldest folk beliefs of the area and to the most remote local traditions, which over time have proven to be more authentic than anything else. In the cellar, long skin macerations and lengthy wood aging are natural consequences of a path aimed at enhancing not only the grapes but the entire territory itself. This is how unique wines are born, capable of transcending any definition related to organic or biodynamic. From Ribolla Gialla to “Breg Anfora,” from “Rosso Gravner” to “Rosso Breg,” and all the way to the Riserves, we can choose a single word to define them all: simply infinite wines.