Old World wine designations that start with C and have six letters or less: Cirò, Corse (sorry Cori, Cava, Capri, Crépy, Carso, Cassis, Carema, Cornas, Cahors, Conero, Circeo, Chaves and Chinon — fit you in next time) and, finally, Collio!
The white grape at play is Friulano, formerly known as Tocai Friulano until Hungary thought that sounded too much like its Tokaj, got the EU to come calling on Friuli, and out it went.
This Friulano varietal has a waxy nose, hints of stewed vegetable garden, is slightly volatile, and offers a bit of cat’s pee on gooseberry bush but richer smelling, much fuller (there — I tried to save it, but the fact that this grape is also known as Sauvignonasse is telling). The colour of this wine is like neon urine. Well, it is.
Good weight in the mouth. Fruit is stony (think stone fruits), pithy (think stone fruits’ skins), mostly melon, and nearly reminiscent of melon wrapped in salumi. Not overt fruit though. Tones of nuts and minerals take over. Mostly nuts and their skins. Really tightly coiled on the finish. What a sherry should taste like if you reverse-oxidized it. Marvelous.
I’ve had this wine a couple of times and it always seems like a revelation to me. Such a feeling of tradition, yet rather uniquely made with completely modern technology (mainly brought into fashion in the region of Friuli by the winemaker himself).
It tastes very anise next to the rapini I had, but you could have this with almost anything and not worry about bad combinations, like you can with sherry.
Mario Schiopetto Friulano Collio 2010 might be my new house wine starting very soon, like this weekend, when the SAQ sale brings this bottle to a lovely price below $25, after taxes.
13% alc/vol, $26.55
