The place#
Friuli is the north-eastern corner of Italy, and the part I tour is small: the Collio, a crescent of hills between Gorizia and Cormons against the Slovenian border, and the Carso, the limestone plateau above Trieste. The hills do not stop at the frontier; across it they continue as Goriška Brda, same soil, same grapes, a different alphabet on the labels.
Oslavia is why most guests ask about Friuli at all: a hamlet of Gorizia, four kilometres from the centre, a scatter of houses and cellars on a ridge where a handful of families decided in the 1990s that white grapes deserved the treatment reds get, weeks and months on their skins. The ossuary at the top, built in 1938, holds about 57,000 dead of the Isonzo front. Vines grow right up to it.
Gorizia itself is a quiet Habsburg town cut in two in 1947; its Slovenian twin, Nova Gorica, begins on the far side of the railway-station square. Cormons, twenty minutes west, is the Collio’s market town.
Terroir: ponca, rain and the bora#
The Collio sits between 100 and 270 metres, Oslavia’s vines at roughly 150 to 200. What matters is the soil, called ponca here and opoka in Slovene: Eocene flysch, thin layers of marl and sandstone that split in the hand, crumble in the rain and re-form into a crust in the sun. Growers will hand you a piece and watch it break; it explains the tension in the wines better than I can.
The climate is Adriatic warmth against Alpine air, which also means about 1,500 millimetres of rain a year, in any month. Thick-skinned Ribolla Gialla copes, and that thickness is why the skins have so much to give in the vat.
The Carso, forty minutes away, is another world: fissured limestone at 200 to 400 metres, thin red soil in the cracks, and the bora wind from the north-east, hard enough that Trieste strings ropes along some pavements. Cellars are cut into the rock.
Ribolla Gialla, Friulano and the skin-contact question#
Ribolla Gialla is the Collio’s own grape and the centre of the story. Pressed early and fermented in steel, it is lean and neutral, citrus and a little salt. Left on its skins for weeks or months it turns amber, dried apricot, tea and walnut, with a tannin you feel on the gums. Same grape, two wines; I pour them side by side on the first evening and the argument lasts until the plates are cleared. The method is in my orange wine article.
Friulano was Tocai Friulano until 2007, when the European Union reserved the name for Hungary; only the label changed. Soft and almond-edged, it is the classic partner for San Daniele ham. Radikon labels its Friulano Jakot, Tokaj spelled backwards, dry humour I enjoy on every list.
Malvasia Istriana is aromatic and saline; Pinot Grigio, macerated briefly, goes copper-pink in the old ramato style. Reds are a minority: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Refosco, Schioppettino and the fiercely tannic Pignolo. On the Carso, Vitovska is the white, pale, pear, herbs and stone; Terrano the red, bright acid, iron and sour cherry.
The vessels matter as much as the grapes: open oak or chestnut vats for the maceration, large old Slavonian botti for years of ageing, and in two cellars, Gravner in Oslavia and Vodopivec on the Carso, Georgian qvevri buried in the floor. If you have tasted with me in Kakheti, you will recognise the room; see qvevri, karas and amphora.
Collio DOC dates from 1968, Carso DOC from 1985; most Oslavia skin-contact producers bottle as Venezia Giulia IGT to stay outside the DOC rules, a legal choice, not a quality one.
Producers to know#
Gravner has been in Oslavia since 1901, bottling since 1973. Joško Gravner went to Georgia in 2000 and buried eleven qvevri the following year; the 2001 Ribolla was the first partly fermented in them. The estate now grows only Ribolla Gialla and Pignolo, and the public rule for the Ribolla is four sixes: six months on skins in qvevri, six months off skins in qvevri, six years in botti, six months in bottle. His daughter Mateja works beside him; the wines come out about seven years after harvest.
Radikon, a few hundred metres away at Tre Buchi, is the other pole. Stanko Radikon returned to his grandfather’s skin fermentation in 1995, seven days at first, later months, and co-founded ViniVeri in 2003. He died in September 2016; his son Saša, beside him since the early 2000s, runs the estate: open Slavonian oak vats, years in botti, no filtration. From the 2002 vintage Stanko and Edi Kante used 500 ml and one-litre bottles with a slim custom cork so the small format ages like a magnum.
Also in Oslavia: Dario Prinčič, La Castellada, Primosic, Fiegl and Il Carpino, who with Radikon formed the Associazione Produttori Ribolla di Oslavia in 2008 to codify a macerated Collio Ribolla di Oslavia. In Gorizia, Damijan Podversic gives his whites sixty to ninety days on skins and three years in botti.
The Collio is not only amber. Borgo del Tiglio, Venica & Venica, Livio Felluga and Schiopetto make the classic whites, pressed clean and fermented cool, and I like one on the table the same day as an Oslavia wine.
On the Carso: Vodopivec near Sgonico, all Vitovska on about six hectares of limestone, some of it six months on skins in amphora; Zidarich and Skerk at Prepotto, cellars cut into the rock; and Edi Kante.
What a day here looks like on tour#
Two cellars a day, never three. Tastings run long, six to ten wines, and the winemaker will want to talk. Slovene and Italian cross the table; I translate the Italian and let the Slovene wash over us.
We start in Oslavia while the ossuary is quiet: one cellar, ninety minutes, then a walk through the vines to the border so everyone has stood in two countries before lunch. Lunch in Cormons or Gorizia is frico, the Montasio and potato cake, or San Daniele ham, with a pressed Friulano to reset the palate after the morning’s tannin.
The afternoon is a second Collio cellar or, once in the week, the Carso and an osmiza. You find them by the frasca, a leafy branch at the end of the lane, a custom from Joseph II’s decree of 1784 letting farmers sell their own wine and food eight days a year; osem is eight in Slovene. Home-cured ham, cheese, boiled eggs, Vitovska and Terrano from the jug, cash on the table. It is the least pretentious wine afternoon I know.
Dinner settles the arguments: skin-contact Ribolla with roast pork; jota, the sauerkraut and bean soup of Trieste, with Terrano; gubana with a glass of Picolit. I keep one classic Collio white in reserve in case the table needs an anchor.
Practical#
The base is Gorizia or Cormons. Trieste airport is 25 kilometres, half an hour; Venice Marco Polo 140 kilometres, about 1 h 40; Ljubljana 110 kilometres, 1 h 30. Oslavia is ten minutes from Gorizia, the Carso three quarters of an hour. We travel by minibus with a driver.
The best months are May to June and September to October; bring a rain jacket in either; osmize open mostly in spring and autumn. Many Oslavia cellars receive visitors by appointment only and some prefer the trade, so I confirm every door before a departure and promise none I have not confirmed.
Friuli is the heart of my Friuli and Collio orange wine tour. For a full week here with a Carso day and an evening in Trieste, a private tour can do it at your own pace.
