In the pantheon of Italian wine, I can name few reds that inspire as much fascination, even awe, as those from Josko Gravner. 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.
The backstory and history are fascinating, not to mention the wines’ unbelievable scarcity: In the average wine professional’s experience, seeing—let alone drinking—a Gravner red might only occur a few times in one’s career. Even back when I was the wine director of one of Northern California’s ritziest resorts, Gravner reds were never made available to me—and upon launching SommSelect, I naturally assumed the wines would remain impossibly out of reach. So, when we somehow managed to acquire a small allotment of Gravner’s 2004 vintage last year, it was an especially proud moment. Still, we are even more ecstatic about today’s 2005 Rosso “Breg”—the vintage is already being celebrated as Gravner’s finest ever, and the wine itself is absolutely on fire. The one unfortunate detail is that we were unable to match last year’s already meager allocation volume, so we are only sending this offer to our top customers.
[*PLEASE NOTE: Today’s special wine is only available on pre-order and will ship from California the week of December 17th]
Long story short, 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. But before we talk about the wine, I think it’s worth delving into its extraordinary backstory. It all starts three centuries ago, when the Gravner family settled and began farming the same small hillside in Oslavia, on Italy’s border with Slovenia. The Gravner 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, 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 replanting 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 a friend in 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, 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 2005 spent more than a year fermenting on its skins in wooden vats, then underground amphorae, after which its spent five years aging in barrel and five 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: Starting in the late 1990s, 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 this wine, the Cabernet family.
If you (somehow) still have a bottle of Gravner’s 2004 Rosso Breg, I recommend making a shortlist of your favorite wine-obsessed friends and opening it with today’s newest release. The 2005 is a storm of deep ruby with a garnet rim. Against a backdrop of immensely powerful black fruits, it bursts forth with a firm mineral imprint accompanied with leather, turned earth, dark Cuban tobacco, black pepper, and crushed rocks. After a 30-60 minute decant, the earth components quiet down and breathtaking aromatics of black and red plums, licorice, black currants, and boysenberry meld with a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers. The palate is a formidable one—even lusher, riper, and richer than the 2004—yet it still maintains a gripping backbone and a skillfully balanced sense of energy and freshness. It’s so rare to encounter such a powerful red that drinks so elegantly while displaying such immense levels of mineral complexity, firm structure, and spice-tinged dark fruits. Reiterating what we said for the ‘04: This is a masterpiece recalling the most regal Pauillac crossed with a top-vintage Barolo. Thanks to Gravner’s patient release schedule, today’s wine is firmly in its prime today, with another 8-10 years of peak drinking ahead of it. Serve it at 60-65 degrees in Bordeaux stems and pair it with something wintry and rustic and reminiscent of the sub-Alpine borderland that is Friuli. Either get yourself some cotechino sausage or, even better, make some yourself; serve over lentils with a drizzle of balsamic and this spectacular wine and you’ve got life won. Let me know what time I should be there!
