Collio Ribolla Gialla La Castellada 2019

Collio Ribolla Gialla La Castellada 2019, natural, organic wine, long maturation, intense white wine, classic Friuli.  Ribolla Gialla is the signature grape of the Friuli and in particular the Collio region close to the Slovenian border.  It is a grape which varies wildly in style from medium bodied dry whites with zingy acidity, and green, citrus fruit characters to deep golden, textured wines with notes of beeswax, apricot, dried herbs, and nutty complexity.

Here with the sensational Ribolla from Castellada, we are in the second camp.  The wine undergoes natural fermentation in oak with maceration for approximately 60 days.  The wine is then spends two years in large slavonian oak and one year in steel before bottling, unfined, unfiltered and with a small addition of sulphur.

It is deep gold in colour and has an intense aroma of antique furniture!  Ripe dried stone fruits come through, apricot, baked apple and peach, almonds, sweet toast and caramel.  This is a rich white wine, although well balanced by the Ribolla acidity and moderate alcohol of 12%.  It is a classic wine for Atumnal foods, game, ripe cheeses, mushrooms, risottos, etc.

The Castellada winery was born in 1954 when Giuseppe Bensa returned home from Switzerland to his native Oslavia on the Friulian/Slovenian border and purchased a small piece of land upon which he planted vines and opened an 'Osteria' where he could sell the products from his farm.

Thirty years later in 1985 his children started bottling their few thousand bottles of wine at the estate rather than selling in bulk and 'La Castellada', (a name from derived from an Oslavian hillside) winery was born.

Since 2009, Giuseppe's grand children Matteo and Stefano have been running the 10 hectare estate and growing the reputation of the wines.  The vineyards were planted in two phases; about half are now over 60 years old and the rest about 30 years.  The complex marl and sandstone soils with a very stony top layer push roots deep in the strata making for more complex wines.  The free draining nature of the soils and natural processes in the vineyards give very limited yields of approximately 25-30 hectolitres per hectare, meaning concentrated grapes and intense wines.  The vines lie at approx 180 metres above sea level and are further influenced by the fresh breezes coming down from the Julian Alpes which moderate the very hot summer temperatures and keep the acidity in the grapes.

As with tradition in the area, most of the white wines undergo a period of skin maceration/fermentation with indigenous yeasts, the length of which varies depending on the variety.  They are then generally aged in a combination of old botti, tonneaux and barriques for two years and a further year in steel tank and bottle before release.   Only the Pinot Grigio made in the Rosato style and the Friulano undergo a significant skin maceration of two weeks.  The other white wines spend just 4 days on the skins adding texture and flavour but not too much tannin and rendering them very much full bodied white wines rather than orange wines.

I discovered these wines in a small Italian restaurant in Mallorca of all places.  The entire wine list was made up of incredible natural producers from Friuli and Piemonte including many of the greats like Radikon, Gravner, Princic and so on.  The Castellada stood out, slightly lesser known but classically styled skin contact wines with intensity, richness and good acidity.  If you like powerful white for hearty foods, these bottles are for you.