Joško Gravner 2016 Ribolla Venezia Giulia IGT

750ml bottle

14.5% abv

Amphora-aged botrytized amber wine from the godfather himself.

2016 Ribolla - Exclusively composed of the local Ribolla grape; bunches, harvested by hand, are transferred by gravity into subterranean Georgian amphora buried underground; long maceration with wild yeasts and no temperature control; after fermentation, the wine rests again in amphorae for five more months and then is aged in large oak barrels for an additional six years; bottled without fining or filtering. This is a deeply personal creation of Joško Gravner that captures the essence of Ribolla in a way no other versions do. He classifies his vintages into those affected by botrytis and those unaffected, and he particularly prizes botrytis-affected vintages for the aromatic and textural complexity they lend his wines. 2016 presented Gravner with a gorgeous sunny summer with no major weather calamities, and gentle August rains ushered in the onset of botrytis. Picking wrapped up on the 28th of October, and the finished wine—clocking in at a modest 14% alcohol—offers a beguiling salty-savory quality, with cleanly rendered minerality and a satisfying sense of textural meatiness.

In the hills above Gorizia, in sight of both the Julian Alps and the Adriatic, Joško Gravner’s family has made wine in the neighboring villages of Hum and Oslavia for generations. Long a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Collio Goriziano/Goriška Brda has, since being razed in the First World War, been traded between Italy, Nazi Germany, Yugoslavia, and Slovenia. From 18ha of vineyards in these contested hills planted primarily to the indigenous Ribolla Gialla and Pignolo (with a few old parcels of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon), Gravner makes some of the most compelling and thought-provoking wines we have ever encountered.

A highly acclaimed producer of technical, stylish Friulian wines early in his career, Joško underwent a crisis of faith in the mid-1990’s, realizing that he simply didn’t enjoy drinking his own wines anymore. The story of his perilous journey into the Caucasus mountains and his encounters with millennia-old Georgian viticultural traditions has been well told by now, but it is not an exaggeration to say that Gravner is among those who prevented millennia-old vinicultural practices from disappearing from his homeland. His wines, often lumped in with other skin-contact wines that have become popular in his wake, stand apart. Long-aged, long-lived, and profound, we invite you to discover the magic that can be bottled in Italy’s Northeasternmost corner.