Collio Evolution celebrates Friulano with a big tasting between Gorizia and Cormons: 110 wines from 53 wineries, vintages from 2001 to 2024. Two evidences emerge: the grape variety is at its best with a few years of maturation and a new generation of producers is renewing the denomination. A dynamic territory that looks to the future with awareness and growing quality. Riccardo Viscardi tells us about it.
Collio Evolution, impeccable organization
A beautiful event, Collio Evolution, full of interesting moments. The event took place between the Prefecture of Gorizia, for the institutional part, and the Enoteca of Cormons, for the technical-tasting part. The work of the Consortium was excellent, which, in agreement with PR Federica Schir, managed time and travel with great expertise and punctuality.
This edition was dedicated to the Friulano, the main grape variety of the appellation. We had 110 Friulanos from 53 wineries in the tasting, with vintages from 2001 to the most recent 2023 and 2024. Some producers presented multiple vintages, offering tasters a valuable cross-reading: territorial and estate, vertical and horizontal. A happy choice, useful to better understand the differences between areas and vintages.
A thought-provoking absence
One small worry: the absence of some companies. It is hard to understand the lack of participation in such a well-organized event, with more than 60 Italian and foreign journalists in attendance and a good turnout.
At a complex historical moment with an uncertain future, what contribution does one make to the knowledge of one’s territory and its promotion in domestic and foreign markets by staying out of occasions like this? Perhaps it is an attitude of a famous Morettian character or it is merely the result of a self-referential and myopic vision. From a territory one cannot only reap benefits: one must also “give back,” contributing to its image and the spread of its culture.
Friulano loves time
Two main considerations emerge from the tasting.
The first: Friulano (for boomers like me, the former Tocai) is a grape variety that loves maturity. With a few years of bottle develops fascinating olfactory complexities and a mouth in which sapidity becomes the dominant stylistic feature, supported by a truly remarkable gustatory richness. Before the third year of life, the wines are sometimes a bit unripe, with aromatic expressiveness still compressed.
Alongside this more classical profile, one notices a nouvelle vague of producers who offer interpretations with fresher and sometimes slightly greenish traits. A style that may not meet with favor among the most traditionalists, even among journalists, but which adds new nuances to the grape’s expressive palette, especially in its early stages.
A new energy in the Collio
The second evidence is the ferment that animates the Collio. New or historic companies now led by young people are challenging established hierarchies. Many of these producers boast a solid university education in Udine, an element that translates into technical expertise and contemporary vision.
Companies to follow
Below we point out the wines from the last three vintages of the realities that have most impressed us from a future perspective and that are not present in our Essential Guide to the Wines of Italy 2026.
2022
- Collio Friulano Fuart 2022 Subida di Monte 94/100
- Collio Friulano 2022 Scolaris Wines 93/100
- Collio Friulano organic 2022 Sturm 93/100
2023
2024
The Producers
- Subida di Monte Via Subida 6 – 34071 Cormons (GO) – Tel. +39 0481 60720
- Scolaris Wines Via Boschetto 4 – 34070 S. Lorenzo Isontino (GO) – Tel. +39 0481 809920
- Sturm Locality Zegla 1 – 34071 Cormons (GO) – Tel. +39 0481 60720
- Villanova Estate Via Contessa Beretta 29 – 34072 Farra d’Isonzo (GO) – Tel. +39 0481 889301
- Magnas Via Corona 47 – 34071 Cormons (GO) – Tel. +39 338 5683080
- Komjanc Alessio Locality Giasbana 35 – 34070 San Floriano (GO) – Tel. +39 340 6931583
- Vosca Via Sottomonte 19 – 34071 Bazzano di Cormons GO tel 349 2848209
