In the pantheon of Italian wine, I can name few reds that hold the same “unicorn” reputation as those originating from Josko Gravner’s small estate in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In the average wine professional’s experience, seeing—let alone drinking—a Gravner red occurs about as frequently as an encounter with Bigfoot.
Even back when I was the Wine Director of one of Northern California’s ritziest resorts, Gravner reds were never made available to me. So, when we started SommSelect, I naturally assumed it would remain impossible to offer today’s wine. Fortunately, our already vast network of elite wine hunters expands further with each year. We were able to acquire a small allocation of Gravner’s mythical rosso, “Breg,” a year ago, and an even smaller drop this past week. In both instances I assumed the wines wouldn’t show up—but sure enough, the bottles were hand-delivered in immaculate condition, and the wine inside them somehow manages to exceed my already high expectations. If you can imagine First Growth Bordeaux colliding with the finest Barolo, you’re starting to enter the realm of today’s red. Simply put, this is one of the great wines of the world and I couldn’t be happier to share it with you today. We are only sending this offer to our top customers and can only offer up to six bottles per customer until our stock runs out.
Josko Gravner’s Rosso “Breg” (he also bottles a white under the same name) is on my personal shortlist of Italy’s greatest red wines. While I can hardly argue with generations of wine authorities who’ve called Josko Gravner “iconic” or “legendary” (and even “The King of Italian Wine”), it still somehow doesn’t seem like enough. This man’s story, the history his wines embody, and the depth and beauty that comes from this small cellar in the foothills of the Julian Alps can’t be summed up in a few flattering words. You must drink this bottle to fully understand.
For 300 years, the Gravner family lived on and farmed the same small hillside in Oslavia, on Italy’s border with Slovenia. The family persevered through multiple empires and World Wars, and in the 1980s and ‘90s, Josko Gravner was becoming an increasingly important figure in modern Italian wine. With all the state-of-the-art winemaking equipment, vineyards full of Chardonnay and Merlot, and cellars full of new oak barrels, Josko had engineered an impressive and consistent system for bottling rich, powerful, squeaky clean young-release wines that commanded high magazine scores and sold-out-upon-release demand.
Still, one night after a long day of wine tasting and vineyard tours during a research expedition in Napa Valley, Josko was struck by an epiphany—he was making “modern” wine that sold well, but expressed little about the nature, history, and soul of his land. So, upon return, he completely changed course, uprooting most of his “international” varieties and re-planting to his hometown’s native grapes Pignolo and Ribolla Gialla. Josko also sold off his stainless steel fermenters and his wooden barriques in favor of large, terra cotta amphorae acquired from Georgia (as in the Caucasus, where winemaking culture is widely believed to have originated). He modeled his operation in Friuli after the ultra-traditional wineries he saw during a pilgrimage to Georgia, burying the amphorae in the earth and fermenting the wines in the most primitive way possible—with all grape clusters intact, only native airborne yeasts for fermentation, no temperature control, no fining or filtration, and only the slightest hint of sulfur at bottling. In short, Josko Gravner makes wine in much the same way as it was made thousands of years ago.
In building a bridge between modern and ancient wine, Josko has inspired an entire generation of winemakers to explore ancient vinification methods and today, one can see his thumbprint in almost every wine region in the world. Perhaps most importantly for those of us who consume the finished product, Josko insists on holding back the release of his wines until they’ve entered their prime drinking window. Today’s 2004 spent more than a year fermenting on its skins in wooden vats, then underground amphorae, after which its spent 5 years aging in barrel and 5 more in bottle before release. If you can believe it, this is the youngest red ever released from Josko’s cellar!
The story of the Pignolo grape, meanwhile, is equally romantic and historic: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, producers in Friuli began rallying around this indigenous variety, which had all but disappeared—it was likely first cultivated by Benedictine monks at the famous Abbazia di Rosazzo, and it was at this historic abbey that some of the last vineyards planted to the grape were said to be found. A number of local vintners began propagating Pignolo and planting it more widely—it is a dark, tannic variety with very perfumed aromatics, prompting comparisons to Piedmontese Nebbiolo, although ultimately the character of Pignolo is quite different. It is, without a doubt, capable of producing serious, cellar-worthy wines—but even today, there isn’t a critical mass of Pignolo wine with which to make generalizations about its character. It is tannic, deeply colored, and a little wild, occasionally reminiscent of Northern Rhône Syrah, sometimes Nebbiolo...and sometimes, as in my experience with today’s wine, the Cabernet family.
Josko Gravner’s 2004 Rosso Breg explodes with vivid black currants and plums, huckleberry, pomegranate, dense minerality, cedar, tobacco, and a chameleonic blend of flowers and spices.This wine’s supple tannins are second-to-none and its finish seems to only grow more lengthy and expressive with each passing moment. It’s so rare to encounter such a truly incendiary red that still has every detail so carefully and skillfully interwoven into the next. This is a true masterwork, recalling the most regal Pauillac crossed with a top vintage of Barolo. I can’t say enough flattering things about this bottle, and thanks to Gravner’s patient release schedule, today’s wine is firmly in its prime today, with another 6-7 years of peak drinking ahead of it. I encourage you to decant this wine for 30 minutes prior to serving in large Bordeaux stems. Its layers of complexity are already daunting, so don’t gild this wine with busy or delicate cuisine. A dry-aged New York strip steak grilled to medium-rare perfection is the way to go. Maybe some creamed spinach or a classic potato gratin to round out the meal, but trust me that today’s wine is a behemoth, and it will steamroll any fussier dishes you put in its path. I can’t wait to open another bottle and I hope you’ll join me! Cheers!
