Browse Tag

vitovska

Here’s Johnn

Zidarich 2008 Carso Vitovska (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Flowers and saline-infused nettles scraped with the rough edge of a dull razor of tannin. A wine that will not be ignored, but to pay it sufficient attention demonstrates how its skin-contact has, at least in the interim, gotten a bit out of hand in relation to its fruit. Will that change with time? Quite possibly. It’s a fascinating exploration of one of the edges of orange winedom, but even such edgeworking vinification needs an occasional sense of restraint, and I’m not entirely sure it was exercised here. Still, this can all be mitigated – somewhat – with sufficiently fatty food, the sort that would typically require something from the much more russet genre. (10/11)

In the year MM4

Vodopivec 2003 Vitovska (Venezia Giulia) – Big blood orange, juiced and pumped full of oxygen (by which I don’t mean oxidation, nor microbullage, but a breath-inducing vivacity), with a core of steel and walnuts on the finish. Powerful. (7/09)

Vodopivec 2004 Vitovska (Venezia Giulia) – Clementine and aluminum. Fat. Short. And disappointing. (7/09)

Vodopivec 2004 Vitovska “solo | MM4” (Collio Goriziano) – Direct and forceful, but to what end? The power seems in service of vanishingly little. Maybe it’s just shy, but this is a rather intense void at the moment. Perhaps it’s a singularity of some sort. A black An orange hole? (7/09)

Vodofone

Vodopivec 2004 Venezia Giulia Vitovska (Friuli-Venezia Giulia) – Even more orange than most of its “orange wine” cohort. But it still brings the insanity. Tannic as hell. Cloudy. Plus: citrus rinds, green olives, very old almonds, a touch of ammoniated walnut. And is that lard that I smell? Incredibly dense, complex…and, as usual, it’s impossible to get a real handle on a wine like this. It just defies every expectation, even when one knows what to expect. (3/09)

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)

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)