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The organic scene in Friuli is as colourful and diverse as the region itself. However, it is not particularly large. At least not yet. But there is a lot happening, and it is precisely the wineries working at a high level of quality that are doing the necessary pioneering work.


Renzo Coceani

Refreshing, uncomplicated and direct. This is probably the best way to describe Renzo Coceani's wines. And this description also fits Renzo Coceani himself perfectly. He is not one of Friuli's top organic producers. Nevertheless, I would like to start with him. On the one hand, because he was one of the first to convert his vineyards to organic and, on the other hand, because I really appreciate wines like Renzo's as wines for everyday enjoyment.

Renzo Coceani% Photo: Brunner
Until 1989, Renzo Coceani worked for the Italian state railway. When he was supposed to take a computer course for further education, he didn't feel like it, gave up his office job and then exclusively took care of his father's vineyards near Capriva del Friuli. It was clear to him from the beginning that he would not use any chemicals: "He had fewer problems with the changeover in the vineyard than with the acceptance of the customers. "Many were sceptical and some didn't come at all when they heard that we were now an organic farm. There were many reservations about organic at the time. Certainly also because the quality of most organic wines at that time left a lot to be desired."

What he now offered me to taste, however, gave me great pleasure because these are wines that simply invite you to drink them and I think it is important that the quality of the basic wines in a region is right - in terms of taste and ecology. All this is the case with Renzo's wines. He produces the typical varieties of the growing region: Tocai, Ribolla Gialla, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Sauvignon for the white wines and Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and a cuvée of these varieties for the reds. With the exception of the cuvée aged in barrique, all the wines are characterised by the character of the respective variety and are pleasantly low in gradation. Prices range between six and eight euros ex farm. In the agritur belonging to the winery, it is possible to taste the wines with typical dishes of Friuli by appointment.

A basket press% still being worked with% Photo: Coceani

If you know Italian, you can have a long and lively conversation with Renzo. He enjoys chatting at length - not only about wine, but above all about the political situation in Italy. And as long as the name of the newly elected or re-elected Italian head of government is not mentioned, it is sure to remain a relaxed and humorous conversation.


Castello di Arcano

Castello di Arcano also produces wines in the medium price and quality range. With 43 hectares of vineyards, it is currently the largest organic producer in Friuli. The winery was formed by the merger of five wineries. These are located both in the DOC zone Colli Orientali and in the Grave del Friuli and, until the foundation of their own winery, delivered their grapes to the local cooperatives or sold them to bottling companies. Too bad for organically produced grapes, the owners thought. And since they knew each other well - some of them were even related - they decided to buy the Castello di Arcano near the town of San Daniele del Friuli, famous for its air-dried ham, in 1997. Here they now vinify their grapes together and bring them to market as organic wines under their own label. An association of producers in Friuli is - even if they know each other well - very unusual, as there is hardly a more idiosyncratic and unsuitable character for cooperation than the Friulian. However, the project works very well and is very ambitious in terms of "organic". Thus, in addition to the normal organic wines, there is also a line in which the addition of sulphur is completely dispensed with. At the moment, these are four red wines (Cabernet, Merlot, Refosco and a Cuvèe) and the white wine Tocai. "These are certainly not the wines that have the potential for long ageing and refinement. But anyone who suffers from a sulphur allergy or intolerance will get a good basic quality here."

Castello di Arcano% Photo: Castello di Arcano

"We don't have any big problems with the red wines anyway. With Tocai, we have to ferment the must with the skins for a while so that the wine can be matured without sulphur. This gives the wine a somewhat darker colour and a stronger taste. For many people, this takes some getting used to. On the other hand, almost all wines used to be vinified this way," says Alessandro Belloni, the technical director of the Castello. I can confirm that. The Tocai is a very soft, full-bodied wine with a strong taste. Delicacy is not the quality that distinguishes it. In any case, it tastes quite good with San Daniele ham on site, and at home I have also found one or two hearty dishes with which this idiosyncratic wine has gone very well. And the sulphur-free red wines have also given me some enjoyable moments with their direct, youthful and somewhat rustic style. Apart from the sulphur-free wines, there is also a wide range of typical Friulian growths: Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Verduzzo (all white) as well as the red wines Merlot, Cabernet, Refosco, Tazzelenghe and the dessert wine speciality Picolit. Prices range from four to twelve euros.

The owners of Castello di Arcano: Domenico Taverna% Conte Francesco Deciani% Contesssa Annamaria Frangipane% Licia Taverna% Photo: Castello di Arcano

Like Renzo Coceani, Castello di Arcano is first and foremost a producer of solid wines for everyday enjoyment. For this very reason, I have placed both of them at the beginning of this report. Because, in my opinion, these wines are extremely important, as they form the basis of Italian wine culture. If this area is left to industrial mass production, precisely what makes Italy as a wine country worth appreciating and loving will be lost.

However, some of the most exciting wines of the region are to be found among the organic producers of Friuli. And that's what we're going to talk about below.


Vignai da Duline

In 1994, Lorenzo Mochiutti helped his grandfather in the cellar of the family winery in San Giovanni al Natisone while he was still studying medicine. And since the beginning of the new millennium, the Vignai Le Duline winery has been one of the top producers in the growing region. "It has always been my goal to produce great wines. To do this with organic methods was out of the question for me from the beginning. He had the good fortune that his grandfather had already dispensed with chemicals and only used organic fertilisers. But he did this well and abundantly, so that the yields were far too high.

Already while working in the cellar, Lorenzo realised that not only could one not make good wines with such thin grape material, but that it was also impossible to do without all kinds of unnatural aids. "The grapes lacked everything: gradation, acidity, mineral salts; the tannins were green, etc. You can't make organic wine in the cellar. So the first thing he did was to reduce the yields, plant the vines with greenery, prune them back more, and "after four or five years, a new equilibrium was achieved in the vineyard, so that from 1999 onwards, I no longer had to use any of the tools and methods I had used before."Le Duline wines are neither enriched nor filtered nor clarified, "because I want to find everything the vines give in the bottle, and each of these methods takes something away from this richness". All wines are aged in wooden barrels, mostly in barriques, even the whites. You won't taste any of this, because the wood is not used here for the purpose of flavouring, but for the optimal maturation of the wines. "For me, it is important to pay attention to each individual wine. Respect for the particular characteristics of the starting material." During the entire maturation phase, the wine remains on the lees. "This allows me to do without sulphur completely in the first year of vinification."

View over Friuli vineyards% Photo: Brunner

The prerequisite for working in this way is perfectly ripe grapes that also have good acidity levels. "We have good conditions for this in Friuli. It is not as easy as in Burgundy, but it is possible with good work in the vineyard. I am lucky that my vines are very old. What I have to take care of is the balance of the individual plant. I don't achieve that by using various preparations, not even biodynamic ones, but through close observation and appropriate measures. Example: If I cut back ten vines that stand directly next to each other to seven eyes, then of these ten vines some will produce three fruit sets, others only two and still others all seven. In other words, each of these vines has its own way of expressing itself and depending on what the vine shows me, I will treat it the next year. I will leave two eyes on those that have formed two fruit sets, and seven on those with seven." Of course, this has an impact on the area to be cultivated, because "more than 20.This approach - to observe the plants closely and to take certain measures based on these observations - is for Lorenzo the quintessence of biodynamics.

In his opinion, too much attention is being paid to preparations etc. in the current boom of this farming method. "I am not against the use of preparations, but one should always ask oneself first whether one really needs them. After all, I don't take a medicine - not even a homeopathic one - if there is nothing wrong with me. In my opinion, if bio-dynamics is reduced to the use of preparations, it becomes trivialised. It then becomes a substitute for chemistry. But it is a thought system, an attitude, an approach that is fundamentally different from chemistry. It focuses on maintaining and promoting the vitality of the plant, vitality in the sense that the plant can express the energy it contains. It is important to create an environment for this, because this is the only way to produce truly expressive wines that are shaped by the terroir."

Frederica Magrini and Lorenzo Mocchiutti% Photo: Mochiutti

Lorenzo and Frederica own vineyards in Grave del Friuli and in the Colli Orientali. On the former, Tocai Friulano, Schioppettino, Malvasia Istriana, Refosco, Verduzzo and Merlot are cultivated. In the Colli Orientali Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Tocai 'Giallo'diTocai', Pinot Grigio, Merlot and Refosco. The offer includes eight wines in the price range from 10.50 euros to 22 euros.


I Clivi

Mario Zanusso is a close friend of Lorenzo Mochiutti. And their mutual personal esteem also includes each other's wines. And rightly so, because just as at Le Duline, typical, unmistakable Friulian growths are produced at the highest level at the I Clivi winery. However, in a completely different way - at least in the cellar. Here, no white wine sees the inside of a wooden barrel, only steel. And for a very long time. Now - in spring 2008 - the 2004 vintage came onto the market. I tasted two wines based on Tocai Friulano during my visit to the winery, and it should not have been more. Both invited so mercilessly to refill my glass that I wished I had a chauffeur. Above all, the 'Brazzan' from the vineyards near Brazzano in the Collio has a fascination that you only find in truly exceptional wines. Dense, deep, complex, round and at the same time - after four years! - fresh, elegant and crisp. You don't often experience that. Not in Friuli and not anywhere else. "We decided to age the wines in steel because that seems to us to be the most suitable method for our wines. In the end, however, it is not so important how the wine is matured in the cellar. You just have to choose the method that suits you best and not make any mistakes. In the end, the only thing that matters is what happens in the vineyard, or rather what conditions you find here. We were lucky enough to acquire vineyards that were more or less abandoned. They were not particularly well cared for, but they were not contaminated with chemicals or anything else. On the other hand, the vines were very old. Most of them were between 40 and 60, but some were up to 80 years old. And we profit from this capital."

To the wines in the Wein-Plus wine guide

The wines themselves can also reach a great age here. Also and especially the white wines. Until 1997, Mario Zanusso let me taste his cuvées 'Galea' and 'Brazzan', vinified mainly from Tocai, and none of them seemed tired - on the contrary: the older the wines were, the more complex they were. The white wines are the main interest, especially because interesting autochthonous varieties were found in the vineyards here, and working with original Friulan growths was already very important for Mario's father Ferdinando. Apart from the aforementioned cuvées, which "can actually be called Tocai, because they contain over 90 percent of this grape variety," Malvasia and Verduzzo are also produced. Red wine is also produced - a pure Merlot - but in very modest quantities. Prices range from 18 to 25 euros, depending on the wine and the vintage.

Mario Zanusso and father Ferdinando% Photo: Mario Zanusso

I Clivi has been producing organically from the very beginning. Certification has only recently been applied for, and from 2010 it will be official. "We decided to apply for official certification for credibility reasons. There are simply too many who call themselves 'Vini naturali', 'bio-dinamici', 'Vini veri', etc. nowadays. Mostly this is done to distinguish themselves from others and to attract attention in a market that is becoming more and more difficult. In the past, this was done with particularly structured wines aged in wood. Nowadays, by resorting to archaic vinification methods and long maceration, even for white wines. I am not against these wines. Everyone should do what they think is right. But especially here in Friuli, there are some who consider their way of winemaking to be the only correct one and, above all, the only natural one". Anyone familiar with Friuli knows who is meant by these statements, namely some of the most renowned wineries of the Collio, such as Gravner and Radikon. The former in particular is something of a living legend in Friuli. Rightly so, in my opinion, because he has created some of the most important wines of Friuli. However, I can't really get to grips with his current wines. I feel the same way about free jazz. It, too, is played by the masters of this music and enraptures insiders and connoisseurs, but many - including me - can't do anything with it. But my personal taste preferences are not the reason why Joschko Gravner and his friends in Oslavia are not mentioned here with their own chapter, even though they see themselves as the vanguard of biodynamics in Friuli. The wines they produce are very good in their own way(to the wine guide entry of Radikon). The reason for the absence of these producers is that they do not want to be certified and I consider certification to be the minimum requirement for a mention in a report on organically producing farms.


Ronco del Gnemiz

As with the Pecoraris, the Ronco del Gnemiz winery recently underwent a generational change, which was accompanied by the official certification of organic farming, which had been practised for many years. Although the conversion is still in progress, it should take much less time than the usual three years due to the favourable conditions created by the previous cultivation. The decision to go organic was based more on ethical than practical considerations. "I cannot buy organic products and use chemicals in the production of my own products," says Serena Palazzolo, who took over the farm from her father ten years ago. "And I just think it's important to live in your own world - even if it's a small one - as you see fit. Because only you are responsible for this world and no one else. As far as wine is concerned, I believe that such an attitude is strongly reflected in the product" First of all, a crisp, refreshing acidity is reflected in the wines of Ronco del Gnemiz. However, this does not mean that they are inharmonious or even unripe. On the contrary: they are very aromatic, intense wines, but they need time. This is also because they are almost all matured in barriques and the wood only really integrates well with time. Depending on the vintage, the white wines should be between three and six years old, the reds between five and ten.

Serena Palazzolo and her two sons% Photo: Brunner

Like the Pierpaolo Pecorari winery, Ronco del Gnemiz is advised by Andrea Pittano, an agronomist who is not only in charge of organic wineries, but who particularly enjoys working with them. "It is more pleasant and simply more fun to work with people who are open to natural methods, because they usually also have a greater sensitivity for the respective terroir and value an individuality that results from this and not from the sophisticated application of any cellar techniques." What Andrea Pittano means by this, I could see during my penultimate trip to Friuli, which took place at the time of the grape harvest. In many wineries, for example, the freshly harvested red grapes were laid out to dry in huge warehouses before the mash fermentation. This results in a concentration that the grapes do not have naturally. The results are sometimes truly monster wines. Far removed from what really grows in the Friulian vineyards. But unfortunately these wines are highly rated by the well-known guides. You can drink maybe half a glass of them. The Ronco del Gnemiz wines are of a completely different kind and show their quality not only in tasting, but above all in eating. "Serena Palazzolo says: "Most of our wines are drunk out of the bottle, at least that's what I experienced when I tasted the white wines at home.

Ronco del Gnemiz produces the white wines Tocai, Malvasia, Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio, and the red wines are a pure Merlot, a cuvée of Cabernet and Merlot as well as the local grape varieties Refosco and Schioppettino. Prices range from 9 to 35 euros.


Alessia and Denis Montanar - Borc Dodòn


Denis Montanar% Photo: Brunner
In the first half hour of my visit, Denis Montanar told me next to nothing about his wines. Instead, he told me a lot about the history of the municipality of Villa Vicentina and the hamlet of Borc Dodòn; about the old connecting road that wound its way through the plain from the hilly areas of Friuli to the ancient Roman city of Aquileia in numerous curves, always taking into account natural features such as old trees and the geography of the landscape. He regretted that nowadays the roads are no longer integrated into this landscape and mercilessly cut it up, because they are only planned as the shortest possible straight connection from one centre to another. He told me about the cereals he grows on a four-year rotation, about the pigs he has taken on, one of which has to die every now and then so that he can offer his guests homemade salami at the agriturismo. And finally, he drew my attention to the aesthetics of the raindrops that had formed on the wire frames of the vineyards after a refreshing shower. "Wine is a beautiful thing, it gives a lot of pleasure and is certainly our most important product in economic terms. But before wine comes food and a functioning social and cultural environment. Only when wine fits into this or - which is the same thing - is an expression of it, does it have meaning for me."

About the wines in the Wein-Plus wine guide

Denis Montar took over the Borc Dodòn farm from his grandfather in 1989. He has been cultivating the vineyards according to organic guidelines since 1996, and the grain and seed cultivation since 2000. He cultivates the local varieties Refosco, Tocai Friulano, and Verduzzo, as well as Cabernet, Merlot, and Muscat. He is one of those who ferment their wines with the mash for a relatively long time. Also the white wines. The results are very powerful wines, with a rather rustic character. He finds that these wines express the particularity of the soil as well as the hearty, local eating and drinking culture particularly well. However, he does not make a dogma out of this type of vinification and applies the maceration very differently depending on the variety. For a relatively long time in the case of Verduzzo and the Cuvée Uis Blanchis, moderately in the case of Tocai and not at all in the case of the Cuvée from Muskateller and Verduzzo that is planned for the future, "because what matters to me here are the fine, subtle fruit aromas that tend to recede into the background in a maceration. These are wines that can or must mature. So the youngest wines at the moment are a 2006 Merlot and a 2005 Tocai, both of which are still at the beginning of their development. Of the Verduzzo, the Cuvée Uis Blanchis and the red wines Refosco and Uis Neris, the 2003 vintage is now coming onto the market. All the wines can be enjoyed in the farm's own agritur with salami, local cheese and home-baked bread. A visit here is worthwhile not only for the food and drink, but also because of the proximity to the culturally interesting towns of Aquileia and Grado. The first vines in Friuli were probably planted in the former in pre-Roman times.


Other organically certified farms in Friuli are:

- Marina Sgubin in Dolegna del Collio, Scriò: Family business with typical wines of the Collio, which can be enjoyed in the in-house restaurant with local specialities.
- Ca' Selva in Pordenone: Medium-sized winery that produces not only classic Friulian wines but also acceptable Prosecco.
- Cantina di Cormons: The organic line of the cooperative winery delivers uncomplicated wines for everyday enjoyment.
- La Faula in Faedis: Typical wines of the Collio Orientali at very moderate prices. Overnight accommodation in the attached agritur.
- MontAlbano produces typical Friulan growths in the medium price range and vinifies simple wines in the lower price segment from other regions of Italy.


Conclusion

The organic scene in Friuli is (still) very small and manageable. But it offers a good selection for every taste and budget. It is very diverse and at first glance presents a rather confusing picture. But we are in Friuli, where the vineyards stretch from the foothills of the Carnic Alps to the sea. One cannot and should not expect uniformity. Culturally, too, this region is shaped by three fundamentally different influences: the Italian, the Austrian and the Slavic cultures. And last but not least, we are dealing with Friulians. And those who know them know that they can't help but do exactly what they set their minds to. Each winegrower produces between five and ten varieties, each in its own individual way. One offers fresh, youthful wines, another structured wines in need of maturity, the next ferments his white wines with the skins. For one, all wines are matured in wood, others strictly refuse this, and so on. In contrast to many other winegrowers I have met in Friuli, none of the Bios consider their own way of making wine to be the only true one. There is great mutual respect here and no one talks badly about the other. As long as the typical Friulian stubbornness is expressed in this way and in an - admittedly often confusing - variety of high-quality wines produced according to organic criteria, every trip to Friuli becomes a new pleasure for me and I hope that in the future many more Friulian producers will discover the advantages of ecology for the quality and expressiveness of their wines.

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