Description
Gravner, Ribolla
In the vast landscape of Italian wine, only a few bottles can evoke as much fervor and fascination as those from Josko Gravner, a man who, after some 50 vintages, has harnessed nature and infused its energy into his powerful cult wines.
For the few souls who still remain in the dark, Gravner’s tremendously long-aged Ribolla is a spellbinding and truly singular “amber” wine. It’s the one that put him on the map as a cult phenom, the one that has graced every cutting-edge wine list around the globe; it’s the reason critics now bow to Gravner with deference. Today’s 2014 release racked up nearly 100 months of aging in a combination of buried Georgian amphora, old Slavonian cask, and bottle before its official release last year, and our microscopic parcel marks the last of inventory from the importer. Every sip brings fathomless depth, curiosity, and intoxicating opulence, and each passing hour seems to unlock a new dimension of flavor and texture. Only a handful of people will get to taste today’s cuvée, and how lucky they are. No more than three bottles per person.
While many would call today’s Ribolla an “orange” wine (a white wine that sees extended skin contact), those who follow Josko Gravner’s wines closely know that he refuses to acknowledge the term. In an interview with the Italian Wine Chronicle, he proclaimed that “my wines are not orange; if a wine is orange, it’s oxidized.” Above all, they are wines of purity, profound depth, and superb levels of freshness; the defining feature of this legendary estate. But before we talk about his flagship Ribolla, I think it’s worth delving into its extraordinary backstory.
It all starts three centuries ago when the Gravner family settled and began farming the same small hillside in Oslavia, on Italy’s border with Slovenia. The Gravner family persevered through multiple empires and World Wars, and in the 1980s and ‘90s, Josko Gravner was becoming an increasingly important figure in modern Italian wine. With all the state-of-the-art winemaking equipment, vineyards full of Chardonnay and Merlot, and cellars full of new oak barrels, Josko had engineered an impressive and consistent system for bottling rich, powerful, young-release wines that commanded high magazine scores and sold-out demand. Still, one night after a long day of wine tasting and vineyard tours during a research expedition in Napa Valley, Josko was struck by an epiphany—he was making “modern” wine that sold well, but expressed little about the nature, history, and soul of his land.
So, upon return, he completely changed course, uprooting most of his “international” varieties and replanting to his hometown’s native grapes, Pignolo and Ribolla Gialla. Josko also sold off his steel fermenters and his fancy barriques in favor of large, terra cotta amphorae acquired from a friend in Georgia (as in the Caucasus, where winemaking culture is widely believed to have originated). He modeled his operation in Friuli after the ultra-traditional wineries he saw during a pilgrimage to Georgia, burying the amphorae in the earth and fermenting the wines in the most primitive way possible—with all grape clusters intact; only native airborne yeasts for fermentation; no temperature control; no fining or filtration; and only a hint of sulfur at bottling. In short, Gravner makes wine in much the same way as it was made thousands of years ago.
In building a bridge between modern and ancient wine, Josko has inspired an entire generation of winemakers to explore ancient vinification methods, and today, one can see his thumbprint in almost every wine region in the world. Perhaps most importantly for those of us who consume the finished product, Josko insists on holding back the release of his wines until they’ve entered their prime drinking window. Gravner’s Ribolla is sourced from estate vines along Italy’s northeast border with Slovenia. In the cooler and wet 2014 vintage, harvest extended into late October with robust clusters that developed a moderate level of noble rot.
In his cellar, the Ribolla grapes fermented in buried Georgian amphorae (kvevri) slowly and naturally, on their skins, before being drawn out and pressed back into these vessels. After five more months, the wine was then transferred into large, well-used oak barrels for six years. It was bottled unfined and unfiltered and allowed to rest further. All told, nearly eight years passed before this transcendent Ribolla was released.
