The first time I went to Friuli was in 1998 to scout a bike tour. Claudio and I were newly engaged, and I was clueless about the Collio, the easternmost crescent of land abutting Slovenia. I had no sense of this porous borderland where Latin and Slavic cultures intersect. All I knew was reading a map while driving on mountain switchbacks induced a throbbing headache. On the bright side, I was crazy about the pastries: cinnamon-swirled, raisin studded, and fit for any Austro-Hungarian Emperor who once ruled this land.

The next year Claudio and I founded La Dolce Vita Wine Tours. We offered a wine tour in Friuli, but it didn’t sell. Not one phone call. Friuli and the Collio simply didn’t register with wine tourists back in 1999. Nor were wineries ready for them, with few tasting rooms and fewer websites. (To be fair, those were the days of dial-up broadband.)

I was surprised by the lack of interest. After all, Collio winemakers had been leading the way in modernizing Italian white wines for three decades, after Mario Schiopetto introduced German winemaking techniques in the late 1960s, deploying Italy’s first cold-fermentation stainless-steel tanks. Suddenly, oxidized white wines were a thing of the past.

Flash forward to 2010. I returned to the Collio on a press trip. By then, tasting rooms were everywhere. And there were plenty of journalists eager to write about Collio wine, including me. (See my article “Peaks of Perfection: The Collio”.) That trip was a deep dive into this hybrid culture. I had the best polenta in my life — rough-ground and rustic, cooked in a copper kettle over an open fire. I scrambled through WWI mountain trenches, once bloody and cold and now an open-air museum. I marveled at the plentitude of Roman riches in the museum of Aquileia, the Roman Empire’s gateway to the East. And I got full immersion in Collio wine. Well appreciated by the ancient Romans, then prized by nobles from the Republic of Venice and the Imperial Hapsburg Court, I found it pretty great too.

Flash forward another 11 years, and I’m invited by the Collio Consortium to a Zoom tasting. This was intended to showcase the spectacular 2019 vintage. “If I were a winemaker, I would want to put a tattoo of 2019 on my body,” said Italian journalist Matteo Bellotto, one of two speakers on our Zoom call.

Perfect weather in September meant the harvest wasn’t rushed by threat of rain. Winemakers could pick at their leisure, based on maturity of the grapes, not weather.

Winemaker and sommelier Mitja Sirk confirmed as much, saying “it was a jump to the past” in his pick date, which fell in September, like decades past, rather than August, like in recent overheated years. “It’s better to wait for cooler nights and fuller maturation,” he says.

Adding to 2019’s perfection was rain in May, which helped the vines survive a dry, hot summer. That heat brought intensity and concentration to the wine. The weather was everything a winemaker could hope for.

We tasted six wines, all whites. That’s a pretty accurate reflection of the priorities in the Collio, where vineyards for white grapes (86 percent) significantly outnumber those for reds (14 percent).

“The Emperors used to like white wines, and leave the red for the common people,” Bellotto explains. “And we’ve got the climate, which is perfect for white wines.”

The Collio is wedged between the Julian Alps and the Adriatic, and constant breezes between the two bring dramatic temperature excursion­s. Which leads to more aromatic wines.

All the wines we sampled were Collio DOC 2019 and had Collio traits: little to no oak, dry (no more than 4 g/l residual sugar), and crystal-clear in their varietal character.

Ribolla Gialla, Conti Formentini

Here’s something new I learned from Mitja Sirk: “As a tradition for our place, the first wine to taste is always ribolla gialla.” This ancient indigenous variety has a pronounced acidity that makes it a good opener. (Aperitif derives from the Latin apertus, to open, as in ‘open your palate to the meal to come.’)

Back in 2010, I tasted quite a few orange wines made from ribolla gialla. The grape’s skins have abundant tannins, which enables that kind of approach. But Conti Formentini’s version has nothing to do with that style. It’s clean as a whistle, smacking of tart Granny Smith apples with a light floral bouquet. This wine went beautifully with a kumquat tagine I happened to make the next day, having enough acidity to stand up to the citrus. 

If you happen to visit San Floriano, be sure to stay in this winery hotel. The property has belonged to the Formentini family since 1520 and has all the trappings of a Renaissance castle. It boasts the oldest cellar in the Collio.

According to Sirk, the grapes in this wine come from the “sweetest spot” for ribolla gialla in the Collio. That’s San Floriano’s highest hill, whose cool altitude and temperature excursion temper ribolla’s tendency to over-produce. And because the grape is a late ripener, this bottling benefited mightily from the leisurely pace of the 2019 harvest.

Friulano, Ronco Blanchis

As Collio natives, both speakers were huge fans of the friulano grape. “Friulano is like an old friend. It’s a comfort food for us,” Bellotto enthused. “This is the real voice of our land!”

Sirk agreed. “Friulano is the key to understand the different villages, the different hills, and of course the different styles of each family,” he said, noting that every producer is going to put forth his best efforts in crafting a good Friulano to satisfy the local market — namely friends and neighbors.

Ronco Blanchis is a small winery just below San Floriano, run by Giancarlo Palla and his two sons. Its winemaker, Gianni Menotti, was deemed Winemaker of the Year by Gambero Rosso in 2006.

He gets my vote. This was our favorite wine of the lot, not because of the cool rocket-shaped bottle, created for Collio wineries in 2009. It was that blast of concentrated fruit that won me and Claudio over, redolent of peach and pineapple, as well as its creamy texture, lively acidity, and super long finish. The winery website says that their Friulano grapes are often attacked by noble rot. That would explain the rich texture and opulent aromatics. Sirk describes this as being a Friulano in “a flowery mood,” adding, “It’s very seductive.” I couldn’t agree more.

Malvasia, Blazic

“If Friulano is the wine every producer makes and everyone drinks, Malvasia is more intimate; it needs the right spots,” Sirk says.

Blazic is another small producer. (Collio as a whole is full of them, the average winery being just six acres.) Founded in 1923, the Blazic winery near Cormóns specializes in malvasia (of which there are 23 variants in Italy) and ribolla gialla. But frankly, this wine just didn’t ring my bell. I got tart apple and not much more. I guess I’m used to malvasias with more aromatics.

Pinot Grigio, Tenuta Borgo Conventi

Now we get to the Collio’s most widely planted white grape, pinot grigio, which makes up 29 percent of production. Combined with sauvignon, these two grapes constitute half the Collio’s output.

Pinot grigio and its cousin pinot bianco were brought to Friuli by the French Count Theodore de La Tour back in 1869. Both have found their footing here. But Sirk thinks pinot grigio from the Collio is misunderstood. “Our terroir is not suitable for that everyday, crispy, easy-drinking glass of white wine.” Instead, their pinot grigios speak of terroir.

Bellotto goes on to say, “In pop music, you can have Shakira, and you can have the Beatles. We have the Beatles. It’s not the summer hit that you find all over the place. We have something much deeper.”

This bottling from Tenuta Borgo Conventi was very good indeed. The 50-acre winery makes three lines. This is from their middle tier, between the intro and the single-vineyard cru. It has nice fruit that suggest pear and lemon/lime citrus, some savory herbal notes, refreshing acidity, and a finish goes on forever.

Pinot Bianco, Toros

For a long time, pinot bianco was the forgotten cousin, used only in blends or to enhance chardonnay. Now it’s enjoying the stage all by itself. It seems winemakers have caught on to its great connection with the local ponca soil and microclimate here.

The 27-acre Toros winery is run by Franco Toros, and is now in its fourth generation. Sirks calls it an “iconic” estate in the Collio. “They have this signature of always using a little bit of barrique,” he says, but not more than 20 percent. Just enough to give this pinot bianco a velvety rich texture, helped along by batonnage. Full bodied, with ripe pear and a touch of hazelnut, this is a gentle, elegant wine. (It was my husband’s second favorite, after the Friuliano.)

Fantazija Collio Bianco, Polje

My second favorite was this one. During my press trip, I learned to understand and love Collio Bianco. It’s essentially a blend of any white grapes except for extra-aromatic ones, like traminer and muller Thurgau. So Collio Bianco ends up being the artistic signature of the house.

This Fantazija from Polje was a blend of chardonnay, ribolla gialla, and sauvignon, some fermented and aged in oak and some not. It was a beautiful fantasia, with the zippiness of ribolla, the body of chardonnay, and the aromatics of sauvignon (in this case mango, like in New Zealand).

The rules for Collio Bianco, drawn up in 1968, are about to change. According to Sirk, “We hope in the next two years we can talk about Collio Bianco as a blend of only local grapes.” That means this Fantazija Collio Bianco would no longer be allowed. Chardonnay and sauvignon have been here since 1869, but they aren’t native to Collio. I’m sad to see such a delicious wine relegated to the dustbin, but I understand the rationale. As Sirk explains, “It’s easier to present around world as a blend of local grapes grown on Collio hills.”

Bellotto elaborated that some winemakers are trying to replicate historic blends, based on how farmers used to plant their vines: ribolla gialla at the top of the hill for acidity, then friulano for body, and malvasia for aromatics.

I’m not happy about it, but I get it. I guess that gives me all the more reason to rush out and buy a bottle of this Fantazija. And I’d advise all white-wine lovers to give any Collio white wine a try. Just be sure to look for the 2019s.

Collio stats
350 wineries
6.5 million bottles
17 grape varieties, plus Collio Bianco & Collio Rosso