TMC Guide - Collio Orange Wines, Part 1

44 skin fermented whites from Friuli Collio, tasted and rated by our panel

Welcome to the very first TMC guide! This will be a roughly quarterly series focusing on a specific region and/or style. These guides are based on blind tasting notes from three experts, of whom one is always me. I don’t publish scores, and I explained why in this article.

These guides are designed to help you find the wines that best suit your personal taste and/or your budget. As with everything at TMC, I focus on artisanal, natural and low-intervention wines.

This inaugural guide was inspired by the Consorzio Collio’s recent vote to create a new DOC category for orange wine - an historic decision that reverses 30 years of suspicion and indifference to a category whose renaissance began right here.

For this report, I sourced every wine from the Collio that would qualify for the proposed new DOC (expected to start from the 2024 vintage). The key requirements are a minimum of seven days’ skin contact and (no doubt) limits to the Collio’s permitted grape varieties. Some of these wines already have the Collio appellation, but many are currently declassified to IGT or Vino Bianco (table wine).

Even after 14 years of visiting and researching the Collio’s orange wines, I never tasted all these producers together. So this was a first. We tasted 44 wines from 15 different growers. Tasting with me were sommelier and importer Alessandro da Fies (Bak, Troppo Giovane), and sommelier Barbora Peterikova (Wils Restaurant and Bakery Cafe).

This report is split into two parts:

Part 1 (below)

Introduction to the region

Our six overall favourites, plus the following producer guides:

• Damijan Podversic

• Dario Prinčič

• Draga Miklus

• Fiegl

• Franco Terpin

• Gravner

• Il Carpino

Part 2 (here)

Each taster’s top three wines plus the following producer guides:

• Bressan

• La Castellada

• Nikolas Juretic

• Klanjscek

• Okús

• Paraschos

• Primosic

• Radikon

All wines were spontaneously fermented and bottled either completely unfiltered or (in a few cases) with coarse filtration.

Most listed stockists ship either to multiple US states or all EU countries. For further stockists in your country, check wine-searcher.com. Where I list a stockist this does not indicate any warranty or guarantee of their services or the availability of the wine.

Introduction to the Collio

Friuli Collio is the most north-easterly tip of Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Italy itself, surrounded by what is now Slovenia. In the past, this cross-border region was one with Goriška Brda, its Slovenian equivalent. Both Collio and Brda mean hills in their respective languages, and this is a land of beautiful undulating slopes and steeply terraced vineyards. The Collio ends at the flat valley floor around Cormons.

Many families who nowadays find themselves on the Italian side of the border have Slovene heritage - something that is usually obvious to see from their Slavic family names.

The region’s native Ribolla Gialla was the trigger for icons Stanko Radikon and Josko Gravner to return to their grandparents’ traditions of using prolonged maceration to soften its thick skins. In that sense, the modern-day revival of orange wine began here in the late 1990s.

International varieties including Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio have 200 years of history here, but many artisanal growers prefer to focus on the local Friulano (aka Sauvignonasse), Malvasia Istriana and Ribolla Gialla varieties.

The Collio’s most plentiful soils are the ponca - a local name for flysch, a brittle combination of marl and decomposed sandstone. Remains of WWI artillery litter some of the vineyards, a grim reminder of the area’s history as one of the war’s bloodiest battlegrounds.

The Collio has enjoyed fame as the source of Italy’s most elegant white wines since the 1960s. That reputation has unfortunately caused conflict between the more classically-minded wineries and those who opted to refocus on the arguably older heritage style of skin fermented whites. The approval of the new DOC is a positive step that might finally put an end to this ideological divide.

Six of the Best - the Star Performers

These six wines impressed all three tasters, demonstrating not just quality but also universal appeal. Additionally, Dario Prinčič’s Bianco is our value pick from the entire tasting, available in some markets for around €25. None of these wines are bargain or entry-level priced.

Dario Prinčič - Bianco NV (2023 bottling)

Multi-vintage blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio, with shorter skin contact. Aromatic, vibrant fruit, brined peach and citrus with a thrilling sweet-and-sour palate. Fine tannins and a long finish.

Widely available. USA from $35: Woodland Hills Wine Company (ships to all states). EU from €25: Natural Wine Dealers Troppo Giovane. UK from £24: XtraWine.

Draga Miklus - Ribolla Natural Art 2015

30 days on the skins, fermented and aged in wood. Flinty, almost Jura-like reduction. Nicely fleshed out, with sage and nutty flavours. Very harmonious and long. An unusual style, less angular than most skin fermented Ribolla. Tannins are nicely integrated and soft.

If you like Gravner, this is a slightly lighter alternative.

Library vintage, still available from the winery €99. EU from €27: Il Salotto Bewine. N/A US and UK.