Wine Blogging Wednesday 41: Friuli-Venezia Giulia

This month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday finds us travelling to Italy, where I’d love to revisit some time for more than just a day. (Granted, it was a day in Venice and amazing to a 16 year old who’d never been anywhere, but I need to get back, especially with my no longer picky palate.) This trip is to the northeastern corner of the country, bordering Slovenia and Austria, and not terribly far from my one little stop. This region is known for its hodge podge of food, people, and wine, especially the white version.  And those are pretty much the only wines I’ve had from there, including delicious Tocai Friulano and an unfortunately past Sauvignon Blanc.

The wine I found, after a bit of correctly predicted trouble, was the 2005 Ciani Pinot Grigio from Friuli Grave. I found it at Farmstead Cheeses & Wines in Alameda for $15, a few dollars shy of Jack and Joanne’s recommended price point. However, I was still quite happy with it, as were my two co-workers who shared it with me. Monday night I opened the bottle, and after some potential flaw indicators such as lit match and banana, the wine worked its way into chalk dust, gravel, tart, tart lemon, white pepper, and honeydew melon. It went nicely with my salad of dried cranberries, goat cheese, and pecans with a blood orange vinaigrette. The wine was crisp enough to match the dressing and cut through the crumbly cheese.

As they suggested decanting over at Fork and Bottle, I decided to save some for the next day. When I poured it at work yesterday, I found the wine to be softer than before. Shauna and Paul agreed with me about the lemon, which was now more like a custard, and the abundance of chalk and gravel. Shauna thought there were some dried apricots, which I found with the prompting but wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

Due to the name of the DOC, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the flavors of minerality or to find that the soil there is dispersed with rocks torn from the mountains by rushing water. The land spills into the glass, and it’s always special when that happens.