Skerk Vitovska Venezia Giulia 2018 (Skin Contact White)

Vitovska Skerk, organic, gorgeous skin macerated wine, rich, complex, savoury, heavy golden colour, lovely stuff! Vitovska is actually a cross between Prosecco Tondo and Malvasia Bianca Lunga. Skerk’s example of the grape is made from organic fruit grown on ‘Tufa’ soils in the Carso, an area of North East Italy with a very Slavic influence. They produce only a few thousand bottles a year of their superb skin macerated whites and they are highly sought after. The Vitovska has bags of personality, on the creamy side but with very well balanced acidity contrast between stone fruit and savoury flavours with a hint of mushroom or forest floor. Try with hearty dishes (I think Lancashire Hot Pot might work well) cheeses and Salumi.

Sandi Skerk took over from his Father Boris, like many in the Carso, their production is very small, totally natural and involves skin contact with indigenous white varieties.

Friuli is a veritable feast of natural, artisan wine production where orange wines are the norm and wild yeasts used without question. Sandi produces some of the regions best, delicious textural wines with great personality, plenty of depth and friendly richness which them more approachable than some of the wines of his contemporaries. This might be due to the fact that Sandi uses oak for fermentation and ageing rather than concrete or Amphoras. This softens the wines and adds a touch of luxury creaminess to the texture. His are orange wines but not in the extreme. The Vitovska is more of a skin contact white rather than orange being deep gold in colour and without the heavy tannin of full blown orange. Ograde on the other hand, you feel more of the skin and the colour is certainly more orange, rusty than gold. The superb Malvasia is somewhere in the middle. Orange or not, Skerk's wines are simply delicious so buy em and drink em!