Friuli Venezia Giulia: A Wine Smorgasbord

BY IAN D'AGATA | MAY 17, 2018

No other region in Italy offers as large a selection of outstanding white wines from so many different grape varieties as Friuli Venezia Giulia does, while the region’s native red grapes yield wines that are equally distinctive.

Make no mistake about it: Friuli Venezia Giulia is the region where, in the 1970s, Italy’s white wine quality renaissance began. Prior to this awakening, with very few exceptions Italy’s white wines were mostly charming tipples meant to be quaffed in the local market within six months or so after having been bottled, as the wines generally oxidized soon thereafter. Thanks to the example set forth by the likes of Livio Felluga, Silvio Jermann and especially Mario Schiopetto, who introduced temperature control and began paying greater attention to cellar hygiene, other producers in the region finally began making cleaner, more precise white wines from the many grape varieties grown throughout the area.

Later, in the mid-to-late 1970s, positive steps were also taken on behalf of the native red grapes of the region, many of which, like Schioppettino and Tazzelenghe, were actually illegal at the time, as the officials forgot to include them in the list of registered grape varieties for planting. But when the first monovariety Schioppettino bottles finally began to appear on the market, wine lovers became fast believers. And it wasn’t just Schioppettino but many other exciting local red and white wine grapes that were quickly saved from oblivion.

International grapes have also been long at home in Friuli Venezia Giulia: Cabernet Franc and Pinot Bianco, each boasting at least 300 years of history in the region, are traditional wine grapes here, while the likes of Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, which had never been grown much before are later arrivals that have also stuck. 

Today, Friuli Venezia Giulia offers Italy’s biggest line-up of outstanding white wines (Alto Adige is the only other region in Italy that boasts comparable diversity and wealth of white grape varieties and wines). But the region also offers a unique array of red wines unlike those made anywhere else in the country. You can look at Friuli Venezia Giulia as Italy’s mirror image to Piedmont. While Piedmont has numerous high-quality red wine grapes and only a few whites, Friuli Venezia Giulia is the exact opposite, boasting a plethora of quality white grapes, along with four or five extremely interesting red varieties as well.

Vigne in Friuli Venezia Giulia

Friuli Venezia Giulia: Facts and Figures

For the most part, annual wine production is very stable, and has hovered around 1.1 million hectoliters for the past ten years. Production is roughly two-thirds white wine and one-third red (rosés have never been a significant part of the region’s wine production). The region not only produces very good white wines but a lot of them too. Roughly 5.1% of all Italian white wine is made in Friuli Venezia Giulia (the region’s red wines account for 2% of Italy’s red wine total). Over the last ten years, DOC and DOCG wines have made up around 65% of production, but the most recent data available, on the 2012, 2013 and 2014 vintages, is skewed by the difficult 2014 vintage, when less DOC/DOCG wine was made (just 49% in 2014 vs. 90% in both 2012 and 2013).