A day in Friuli: I Clivi

I spent a long-awaited and satisfying 18 hours in the Collio Orientale denomination, hard by the Italian-Slovenian border last week.  The destination was the biologico winery I Clivi, a small family winery owned and run by Ferdinando Zanusso and his son Mario.  I had encountered Mario for the first time at one of the Vinitaly fringe events, VinNatur, last April.  Since then I had seen him several other times.  The purity and complex flavors of the wines fascinated me, and I was eager to get an up-close view of the vineyard and the men who run it.

Above: Galea vineyard southward view.  This vineyard surrounds the Zanussos' house.

I Clivi has been in existence for less than 20 years.  The name means "steep hillside," and the roughly 8 hectares of vineyards live up to that description.  The terreno of the winery consists of two small parcels.  One is the vineyard that surrounds the house itself, called Galea.  The other, Brazan, is several miles away on an equally steep hillside.  Brazan is closer to the Adriatic, and Mario told us that its hill is the first to receive moderating, refreshing breezes from the sea.  The entire area around I Clivi is well-insolated and quite windy, which keeps mold and rot away from the plants.  Such natural protections against common vineyard scourges are essential if you are growing vines with little or no chemical intervention.

Mario Zanusso

The soil is calcareous, lending the wines minerality and structure.  The clay in the soil enables the vines to avoid water starvation during the relatively parched summer season. 

One of the things I didn't expect was to find, at both vineyards, a great many old vines of 50-60 years, and even older.  The varieties grown here are Tocai Friulano, Malvasia and Verduzzo.  The Zanussos do produce a red, which is light and pleasing, but the whites are the story here.

Before I write about the wines we tasted -- which will have to wait till another post -- I think it's important to air a couple of Mario's and Ferdinando's strongly worded comments about a certain wine-making philosophy (or cult?) that has grown up in their area of late, not to mention a certain scorn for "oenologists."

As we drove around inside Slovenia -- less than a mile as the crow flies from the Zanussos' house -- I asked Mario what he thought of the Gravner thing with the amphorae and so on. We were speaking Italian, so I'll condense his comments to a few bullets in English.

* Gravner's experiment is ludricous, a gimmick, a marketing strategy. 

* Gravner's wines are dirty.  "Technology gave us cleanness, and this is a huge advance for winemakers.  We can make cleaner, more healthful wines.  They taste better.  They don't make you sick or go off.  Why throw out the benefits of modern methods along with the overmanipulation?" 

* Gravner's prices are absurd.  "Especially since he's not spending a lot of money on oak!"

* Perhaps most damning of all, "Gravner is not part of the community here.  He doesn't give anything back.  He doesn't share or take part in things.  And if you question his methods, you're attacked as if you've violated a cult.  There's no rationality, so no basis for learning or the improvement of the area's wines."

I confess that I find such "dirty" wines interesting but no more.  Certainly I wouldn't spend a great deal to drink them; I'm not sure I could drink, as opposed to taste.  (And spit.)

At dinner, Ferdinando was no less adamant about "oenologists," at least the breed that is turned out by Italy's oenological institutes.  "They're trained as chemists, and they approach wine with formulas as to what a 'great' wine should be like, what chemical elements it needs to have in it."  In other words, these enologi are as much to blame for the homogenization of Italian wine as anybody from the United States.  "It is assumed that every wine should possess such characteristics."

An interesting point of view -- not the first time it's been expressed, that's for sure -- but it is fitting that Ferdinando and Mario are producing subtle, interesting and very drinkable wines that don't easily fit into the usual categories.  Their wines, nearly all blends of the local grapes listed above, age gracefully and develop for years.  Although their retail price in the States is in the moderate $25 range, they are definitely vins de garde, or worthy of being such.

View from I Clivi house and Galea vineyard.  Just beyond the hill with the church tower is their Brazan vineyard

This subtlety and longevity has made it hard for I Clivi wines to gain a sound foothold in the United States.  Based on the implicit comparisons between their wines and long-lived French whites, whether from Burgundy or the Jura, the Zanussos have twice selected US importers whose orientation was preponderantly French.  Neither relationship worked out because, as Mario told me, "They thought Italian wines are Serie B."  Second-rank.  Both importers, for whatever their reasons, remained much more involved with their French portfolio. 

I don't wish to give you an impression that Mario and his father are malcontents who can't cope with the world.  Far from it.  They're highly intelligent, well-educated and -traveled.  But they do have firm ideas of what wine should be and how it should be marketed.  They're relaxed about how long it takes to build a market presence in a large and complex place like the US.  "These wines will get better for years.  It's not as if we had to sell them off quickly or they'll go off.  Their interest and value only grow with time."

Based on the vertical tasting we had, I'd have to agree with Ferdinando Zanusso.  More to come soon.

In the Brazan vineyard

An old vine in Brazan vineyard

Comments

[Lisa Qiu]

Gorgeous. Your writing, your insight, your connections.... Terry--- you're ripe to be famous!

[TH]

Overripe, I'd say. But thank you, my dear, thank you.

[Jeremy Parzen]

great post, Terry. We tend to idealize Gravner (and the wines are fascinating) but the insight into what's happening "on the ground," as they say in U.N.-speak, puts things in perspective. Ben tornato...

[TH]

Grazie, JP. One thing I didn't put into the post was that Mario gets sick whenever he drinks one of these "dirty" wines, and not only Gravner's. He told me that he expected to see shrimp floating in the stuff next, as a sign of REAL authenticity.

[Eric]

Terry,

I do not know the Zanussos but to call Gravner's wines "dirty'' is ridiculous. It raises questions about the Zanussos' motivation for such an assertion rather than calling Gravner's methods into question. Anybody who's ever tasted a Gravner amphora wine would realize that the winemaking has to be far more scrupulous and careful than it does to make conventional wines.

[Eric]

Terry,

I do not know the Zanussos but to call Gravner's wines "dirty'' is ridiculous. It raises questions about the Zanussos' motivation for such an assertion rather than calling Gravner's methods into question. Anybody who's ever tasted a Gravner amphora wine would realize that the winemaking has to be far more scrupulous and careful than it does to make conventional wines.

[TH]

I can't look inside their minds, Eric, but I do think that a good part of their motivation is a real aversion to the back-to-the-future methods, and bandwagon-jumping, of others besides Gravner as well -- Castello Lispida would be one example (which we did indeed talk about). Mario clearly expressed his distaste for cultishness in winemaking and buying. I concede that there is a bit of irony in that, since the Zanussos' wines are definitely a hand sell and require a small cadre of devoted followers to make a market for them.

I did sense real resentment at Gravner's self-positioning -- above all around him, etc. I can believe that this resentment is widely shared in what is still an emerging wine district.

I wrote the piece knowing that a few hackles would be raised, notably yours, since you've written warmly of Gravner's wines on several occasions. Still, I do feel that the Zanussos were frank and honest, and I think that their wines speak well of their talents as well as intentions.

By the way, thank you very much for responding. It's a pleasure to have you here.

[Jeremy Parzen]

I have to agree with Eric that "dirty" comment is excessive. Gravner's wines are indeed very well made (and I have tasted and enjoyed them immensely).

[TH]

Excessive or not, it is what Mario said, and surely he's entitled to his informed opinion "on the ground", as you said.

[alice]

Fascinating insight. Thanks for this fun ride. And Gravener 'dirty' wine. Well, we'll talk about that one over a dirty wine of our own. --Alice

[TH]

Thanks, Alice. Did you read the associated posts? Nice mini-controversy, if you can even call it that.

I repeat: I reflexively distrust anyone or thing that receives such an uncritical reception, taking everything at face value. "No cheap grace," indeed.

[George Vare]

I hope it is not too late to weigh in on the Gravner discussions.

I have visited him numerous times at his wineries in both Friuli and Slovenia, and he has visited my vineyard in Napa.

Josko is very independent (to the point of seeming arrogant) about his approach to making wines in a "natural" way. He has his own reasons for making wine the way he does and is not interested in defending either his approach or his results.

He is an excellent winemaker with a small band of followers. In my mind, when he makes wines without SO2 the results are outstanding - not messy oxidized wines that are barely drinkable as some of his followers did at the outset of this approach. Fortunately, these followers are learning how to overcome the calamity of over-oxidized wine.

When Josko says natural, he follows the practice back into the vineyard with a strong sense of biodiversity on his land with a variety of flora, fauna and related insects, birds, etc.

Drink any of his Bregs or Ribolla Giallas from the late 1990's or early 2000's when he was beginning to experiment with amphoreas - outstanding wines. "Dirty" is the wrong word for them as it has a bad connotation. Different is a much better characterization.
Since they are different, some people will not like or enjoy them. There are some wines I do not enjoy, so I do not drink them. Cheers to him for trying something different! He has given us something to think about or react to.

Josko helped us a great deal with our Ribolla Gialla, but we do not follow his winemaking regimen. We do follow his vineyard pracices, though. We use a small amount of SO2 for protection of our wine. We do not choose to go the amphorea route either - a matter of "taste" - our taste.

We are pleased to be the only grower of Ribolla Gialla that we know of in the US. Our choice of this variety came from enjoying it in Friuli and Slovenia over the past 10 years while visiting our winemaking friends there.

[Jack]

Those are strange comments, for sure. I've not found Gravner's wines to be dirty. Some of the greatest white wines I've ever had have been his. And I'm not the only one who thinks this.

And, I also think both i Clivi and Movia represent the top of the "value" wineries for the area.

[Tomaz]

Don't want to sound like a attorney, but some comments, that say you gave a introspective on the "ground" need to have some more explication "on the ground".

I don't know Mario Zanusso and his wines, but from his comments I presume he has a big personal issue with Gravner. I can only speculate what is the reason, maybe he once tried to visit Gravner's cellar and got rejacted. And now he's angry.

I tried Gravner wines x-times and those who call them dirty should have their palate checked. Different, yes, thank's god, but never dirty. never.

Absurd prices? A bottle of Gravner cost's about 32 euro from the cellar. He produces ca. 30.000 bottles of wine from 18 hectares of wineyards, most of them planted up to 10.000 wines per hectare. He uses amhorae, imported from Georgia, and the best oak wats from Garbelotto. His wines age and purify in his cellar for 42 months before bottling. Is 32 euro a high price for such an effort? I would like to see Mr. Zanusso do his math to compare.

He also claimed that Gravner is not part of the comunity. This is the most pitiful statement: "He doesn't give anything back. He doesn't share or take part in things."

Gravner is one of the most important persons, responsible for the positive evolvment of the whole Friulian wine region. He put the one no named wine region on the worldwide map of good wine and help to raise a number of other well known producers. At least 100+ winemakers if not more visited his cellar in the 70, 80 and early 90'ies to get ideas and advice how to make their wines better.

A short comment to Aquilla del Torre - I tried their wines at the Vini Veri this and last year. Very nice people - especialy the german talking lady at the table. The wines were nice and tastefull, but a bit too technical for my idea of a "vini veri". Good, but by far not in the same league Gravner played in every stage of his wine making evolution.

Greetings from Slovenia!

[Marko]

Another perspective from Slovenia:

@ Jack
Antonio Galloni gave 90 - 92 points for 2002 Gravner wines. This rating is very close to what I think of Gravner wines - definitely very good to outstanding (more latter then former) wines (89 - 92) but by no means extraordinary wines (96 - 100). So far I have tasted Breg and Ribolla Gialla from 1999 to 2002 and it is very difficult for me to compare Gravner wines with the best white burgundies (Leflaive Chevalier 1999, 2000, 2002; Bouchard Montrachet 1999, 2000, 2002; even Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne 1999, 2000, 2002; not to mention Coche-Dury Corton Charlemagne 1996, which I had privilege to taste a while ago). Your 10 best white wines so far?

@ Jack & Terry
Speaking of Movia and gimmicks - what do you think of Movia's Lunar and Puro? By the way here is also Jancis Robinson's opinion of Lunar (http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/20080226_1).

Regards
Marko