Gravner Ribolla 2009 Venezia Giulia IGT
Gravner Ribolla 2009 Venezia Giulia IGT – alternate view 2
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Gravner Ribolla 2009 Venezia Giulia IGT

Gravner
$180.00

Grape: Ribolla Gialla
Vintage: 2009
Type: Orange

Sourced from a dry vintage with low noble rot development, this orange wine highlights a historic local variety cultivated for over a thousand years. Josko Gravner utilizes low-intervention protocols, allowing the hand-picked ribolla gialla grapes to ferment spontaneously with native wild yeasts inside buried Georgian amphorae. The fruit undergoes a prolonged skin maceration without temperature control before being drawn off and pressed gently. It matures for five months in clay followed by six years in large neutral Slavonian oak casks.

It displays a bright straw-orange hue, releasing a complex nose of citrus rind, yellow plum, white flowers, and warm spice. A medium-to-full-bodied frame balances orchard fruit flavors with a chiseled, crystalline mineral undercurrent. A racy vein of natural acidity cuts right through the slightly waxy texture, keeping the mouthfeel lively. Subtle notes of raw almond and marine salinity add deep structural balance across mid-palate. It finishes long, dry, and persistent.

Long aged, long lived, and profound, we invite you to discover the magic that can be bottled in Italy’s North easternmost corner.

I make wines for myself. What’s left—I sell.’ Josko Gravner

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.

Oslavia is a small hamlet near the town of Gorizia in the Friuli region, situated on the Collio.

The estate has a a total surface area of 32 hectares, of which 18 hectares are currently vineyards. The remaining land comprises woods, meadows and ponds.

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.

“Little by little I started getting rid of all the extra equipment I had bought, starting with steel wine tanks and ending with barrique barrels. I don't think it is possible that, over the last few decades, five thousand years of winemaking history have been erased so easily.”