Region: Friuli Venezia Giulia wine guide

Friuli Venezia Giulia is one of the most fascinating wine regions in Italy, the white wines produced here are of rare elegance and have few equals, even speaking worldwide. And despite being much, too much underestimated, red wines are also very interesting with some indigenous grape varieties worth drinking, starting with Refosco dal peduncolo Rosso, with a fine bouquet of cherries and currants and an agile body.

Also not to be missed is Tazzelenghe, a wine with powerful tannins and marked herbaceous hints that with a long refinement manages to soften its hardness to become an excellent red wine, unfortunately, ouch us, also this practically unknown.

We finish with the main grape of Friuli, the Pignolo, a wine of great structure that aspires to a long life and over the years transforms its bouquet of cherries and red fruits into a refined symphony to which a spicy background is added.

Friuli, land of the best Italian sweet wines

There is no shortage of passito wines with Picolit, Verduzzo and Ramandolo in great shape. The wines are nectars of great sweetness, but freshness and minerality are never lacking to make the wines always elegant and slender.

Friuli Venezia Giulia is still a virgin land in many ways, wine tourism in Friuli is still in its infancy, but this represents a great value. Unexplored, authentic areas that offer wonderful views and green hills: wine roads to drink all in one go, with cellars perfectly woven into an uncontaminated territory.

But why is Friulian wine so good?

Friuli Venezia Giulia is located in the north-eastern part of Italy and borders with Slovenia and Austria and precisely this position of crossroads, straddling two worlds, protected from the north by the mountains and with the sea that releases its influence from the south, which makes it unique. The difference in soils is very large, ranging from the marl and sandstone of Eocene origin of the Collio Goriziano to the clayey sands of the Friuli-Annia DOC and ending with the heavy clays of the Latisana area. Consider that the eastern Collio area is the northernmost, breezy and cold, while those to the south enjoy increasingly loose and sandy soils and the influence of the sea.

To understand Friulian wine you must first understand the people of Friuli. Tough people, tireless workers, inextricably linked to the earth. Wine is born from this ancestral bond as pride and fruit of a territory, it is not easy, considering that Friuli is the Italian region with the most rainfall.

These geological and climatic characteristics are only part of the explanation, a part of the terroir phenomenon, we must speak of the human one. The tradition and peasant pride of Friulian producers is proverbial. Many wineries are still family-run and manage a few hectares and this means artisan wine: the care in the cellar and stylistic precision has reached incredible heights, even if in some cases it has created stylistic features that are deeply rooted at the expense of originality. of the varietal.

The culture of wine is alive, strong. Wine is everyday life. The quality of all areas is quite high and you will rarely drink badly. The areas to start from are the Colli Orientali del Friuli and the Collio Goriziano. You will find a constellation of wine-sized cellars, where a warm welcome and amazing quality await you.