Browse Tag

friuli venezia giulia

Ferdinando’s hideaway

[vineyard]i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 1997 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea Corno di Rosazzo (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Fairly advanced for this bottling, which has spent some time in a warmish store (Vintages, Belmont Center) and might have been displayed standing up for a time. All this really means, though, is that the wine is a lot closer to full maturity than pristine bottles: honeysuckle and fine-grained pollen with a lovely milky texture and very good length. (12/08)

Brazzano-burning

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 2001 Colli Goriziano Brazan Brazzano di Cormons (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Waxed peaches. Quite flowery. Texturally, waves of luxurious satin envelop the tongue, and get sexier with each passing minute. While this isn’t fully mature, it’s drinking beautifully right now. (11/07)

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 1997 Colli GorizianoBrazan Brazzano di Cormons (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Reddish fruit at the core, surrounded by wet wax and bronzed, metallic jacket. A triangular wine, drinking as well as it’s ever going to…which makes it the rare Clivi white that’s truly ready. (11/07)

I am the great Corno di Rosazzo

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 1997 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea Rosso Corno di Rosazzo (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – 100% merlot, planted at 2000 vines per hectare. Earthy/gritty tannin, granular cherry and strawberry, and then a finish with the rough, friction-y texture of old leather. A bit of whiskey barrel sweetness emerges on the finish, but the wine isn’t hot. It is, however, in need of drinking. (11/07)

Galea sayers

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 2001 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea Corno di Rosazzo (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – While it appears to broaden in the glass, in fact this wine is a lot less forward than it was a year earlier, so those holding some will now likely need to wait out its maturation. Herbs and a fine minerality are at the core, with a crescendo to a feathery finish that, nonetheless, remains full of mineral solemnity. (11/07)

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 1999 Colli Orientali del FriuliGalea Corno di Rosazzo (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – From a warm vintage in which some of the berries started to desiccate, then recovered some of their plumpness just before harvest. This has opened a bit since my previous tasting, and the dominant characteristic is that of honey without its sweetness, lightly dusted with dried sage. Long and round, but still too young. There’s a very mild and pleasant oxidation on the finish, which I find to be entirely typical of these wines, and in fact hardly unknown among tocais in general. (11/07)

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 1997 Galea Corno di Rosazzo (Colli Orientali del Friuli) – Mostly open, but I still wouldn’t say it’s on the far side of maturity. Wax and oxidation layered with late-autumn leaves and a long, sandy finish. Letting its hair down, and those with a quantity will want to start sampling from their collection. (11/07)

Brazan it out

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 2003 Colli Goriziano Brazan (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – A little better than the ’03 Galea, with a more cohesive form. Grapefruit and other assorted citrus rinds are present, along with some alcoholic numbness of the finish. It’s big. After a few hours of air and warmth, the nose is much improved, adding fig, melon, and cantaloupe to the fruit salad. But while it’s the more drinkable of the ’03 whites, at least at the moment, it’s still fundamentally deformed by its vintage. (11/07)

Galea-force winds

i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 2003 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – A little bit sulfurous at the moment. The nose is heavy and alcoholic (it was, as everywhere else, a very hot year for grape-growing), and not showing much under its twin assaults of lead and SO2. The finish suggests mint, but it’s tight. Solid, fat, long, but formless. However…after two hours in a warm (that’s European “warm”) room, a little bit more has emerged, including some ripe melon and a harder edge to the structure. It’s still a fat, flabby wine, though. (11/07)

Johnny Carso

[glass]Zidarich 2005 Carso Vitovska (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Cloudy as hell, and full of red fruit, soda water, and salted lemongrass. Such incredible texture (“like balsa wood,” says someone). Stunning, but breathtakingly unconventional. (6/08)

That old Galea of mine

[vineyard]i Clivi di Ferdinando Zanusso 2000 Colli Orientali del Friuli Galea Rosso (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Smoky meat, mushroom, and fine-grained tannin. But that’s all there is, and this wine is beyond difficult at the moment; I have confidence for the future based on past performance, but it’s not worth drinking right now. (9/08)

Calling all Carso

Zidarich 2005 Carso Vitovska (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – As obviously unfiltered as it is obviously one of these extended-maceration, naked-experimentation wines for which Friuli is becoming famous. And it’s exciting, with powerful aromatics of spice and soda, plus the pristine, pure sensation of glacier water on the palate…yet if water could be said to have complexity, this has it. The finish is long and beautifully transparent. What a wine! (11/07)

Sick vasia

Le Vigne di Zamò 2005 Malvasia (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Perfumed and lightly spritzy, but fairly forgettable. (11/07)