Welcome back SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch, who again makes his case for the Friulano grape, an indigenous variety that deserves a place among the great whites of the world.
Here at SommSelect HQ, I give Ian Cauble a fair amount of grief for his Francophilic leanings when it comes to white wine. But I’ve got to be honest: French white wine has been my obsession for many years now. When I had my restaurant in San Francisco I was all about Chenin Blanc from the Loire (which I’ll have a lot more to say about here), mineral whites from the Savoie, and of course, white Burgundy. I left a lot of my old Italian loves behind in the process, but never my first love: Friulano. If anything, Friulano (previously known as ‘Tocai Friulano’) left me behind, in a way: the crisp, mineral, steel-fermented style of white wine that characterized Friuli-Venezia Giulia twenty years ago isn’t necessarily the norm today, especially with so many producers in the region moving toward skin-fermented “orange” whites. I wasn’t seeing a mass of varietal Friulano wines that delivered the character I remembered from my earliest days visiting Italy, and one of my favorite interpreters of the variety—Dario Raccaro—had spotty US distribution, at best. I urged an importer friend to go after Raccaro and get his wines in California, and she did—including this wine, a single-vineyard Friulano from the Collio appellation that, for me, is consistently one of the greatest white wines in all of Italy. For those of you (and there were many) who loved the I Clivi Friuliano we offered back in early April, Raccaro’s 2014 “Vigna del Rolàt” ratchets up the intensity and texture. It is a sumptuous, aromatic white that is guaranteed to leave a lasting impression—even on you Francophiles!
The Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, in Italy’s northeastern corner, was once a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had a Francophile bent to its wine culture (and considered it a relatively “warm” climate in which to plant red grapes). The area was also in Napoleon’s path as he swept across northern Italy in the late 18th Century, and grapes such as Merlot, the Cabernets, the Pinots (both Blanc and Gris, or ‘Grigio), and Chardonnay are long-established here. Only more recently have many of the indigenous ‘Italian,’ Istrian, Slovene and Croatian varieties become more widely recognized (Friulano chief among them, but also Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia Istriana, Pignolo, and Refosco). When I first got into Italian wines many years ago, most estates put forth Bordeaux-style Merlot blends as the “top” reds and Burgundy-inspired, Chardonnay-driven field blends as their “top” whites. But there was always Friulano, too. If you walked into an osteria in Udine, or Cormóns (the beautiful border village where Dario Raccaro is based), it was a glass of Friulano you got with your local Prosciutto di San Daniele. The classic style is fresh, sylvan, and spicy—unoaked, mineral white wine that paired perfectly with salty pig parts.
As I mentioned previously, Friulano was long known as ‘Tocai Friulano’—which led many modern researchers to believe that it was the Furmint grape of Hungary’s Tokaji wine region. Meanwhile, producers in Alsace called Pinot Gris ‘Tokay d’Alsace,’ and Australians made ‘Tokay’ dessert wines from Muscadelle. This muddle was resolved in 2008, when Hungary was officially given sole use of the name—it is a ‘place’ name there, attached to their famed golden nectars from the region. Since 2008, Friulians have bottled wines from the grape as just ‘Friulano’—not a bad name, really, as it is the signature white grape of the region.
As DNA research has confirmed, Friulano is a distant relative of Sauvignon Blanc known as Sauvignonasse, or Sauvignon Vert (‘green’ Sauvignon). While there are occasions when some producers’ Friulanos skew toward Sauvignon Blanc in style, it is only in the subtlest of ways and it is rather rare. Name notwithstanding, the best Friulanos are not especially ‘green,’ either in color (they typically have a more silvery cast) or in flavor (there’s much less, if none, of the pyrazine/herbal influence that characterizes Sauvignon Blanc). Friulano is typically more richly textured and lower in acidity than Sauvignon Blanc as well. The vineyards in Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s two top appellations—Collio and Colli Orientali de Friuli—are in foothills in the shadow of the Julian Alps, and are effectively equidistant from these Alps and the Adriatic. This push-pull of Alpine and Adriatic is the key to the region’s success with white wines: Vines are refreshed every evening, which lengthens the growing season to heighten aromatics and preserve acidity, but there’s also plenty of warmth and sun to deliver power and ripeness.
This is surely the case with Raccaro’s 2014 “Vigna del Rolàt”—the product of both a generous vintage and an extremely old-vine Friulano vineyard in Cormòns. This village, hard by the Slovenian border in the Collio DOC, is ground zero for the greatest Friulano wines (Raccaro is the longtime president of the Enoteca de Cormóns, a collective of Collio growers who showcase their wines together in the Cormóns town center). The Raccaro farm was established in the Collio hills in 1928, and Vigna del Rolàt is their flagship site, having provided Friulano rootstock to many other growers over the years. The soils here are classic Friulian ponca—a sedimentary soil of marl, sand, and stone that lends the wines their distinctive minerality. With the help of his two sons, Paolo (viticulturist) and Luca (enologist), Raccaro ferments and ages Vigna del Rolàt only in stainless steel, and bottles it unfined and unfiltered.
Raccaro’s efforts in 2014 delivered a wine of robust texture and aromatic intensity. In the glass it is a relatively deep yellow-gold with slight silver/green reflections at the rim. The nose is assertive and floral, with notes of white peach, apricot, white flowers, spicy wildflower honey, crushed stones and a hint of crushed almond. These sensations carry through to the rich and viscous palate; texturally, this wine may remind you of Alsatian Pinot Gris, or perhaps Marsanne from the Northern Rhône. There’s always a telltale ‘almond-skin’ finish to Friulano that accompanies its minerality, but here it isn’t so much ‘nutty’ but more like sucking on the pit of a juicy peach after you’ve eaten it. The only real hint that it’s related to Sauvignon Blanc is a hint of sage/forest floor in the nose, but this is a riper vintage skewing a touch more tropical in general. It is ready to drink now, no decanting necessary, at around 50 degrees. Its succulent texture (supported by a drying mineral grip) would make it a great cheese wine (especially with a little quince paste condiment), but I also love it with filled pastas topped with butter and sage. Attached is a simple one that will showcase the wine nicely. Man is it good.
Salute! — David Lynch
