Venica & Venica Friulano Collio Ronco delle Cime 1990–2017

BY IAN D'AGATA | MARCH 10, 2020

Located in the Vencò fraction of Dolegna in the prestigious Collio denomination of Friuli Venezia Giulia, the estate founded in 1929 by Daniele Venica has long been a beacon of white wine quality not just in this region but in Italy as well. Best known for their Sauvignon Ronco delle Mele bottling, one of Italy’s first truly famous and world-class Sauvignon Blancs, Venica & Venica is actually very proficient with a number of other grape varieties as well, including Ribolla Gialla and Tocai Friulano. The latter variety is used to make the Ronco delle Cime, one of Italy’s more interesting Friulanos (Tocai Friulano is the grape variety; Friulano is the name of the wine). Today the estate farms 40 hectares and produces about 300,000 bottles a year; roughly 12,000 to 15,000 bottles are of the Friulano Ronco delle Cime.

A few of the beautiful Ronco delle Cime vines.

The Grape Variety and Its Wines

Tocai Friulano is a Friuli biotype of Sauvignonasse, a variety that elsewhere in the world is mostly grown in Chile, though small plantings exist in France, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In fact, there are at least three different biotypes of Tocai Friulano in FVG: the green, the yellow and the red-stalked. The merits of each are much debated (which means, this being Italy, that if you ask three FVG producers which biotype is best, you’ll get three completely different answers). In my experience, the green biotype gives aromas and flavors that are more reminiscent of Sauvignon Blanc, while the yellow biotype gives bigger, rounder wines. (The red-stalked biotype is extremely rare and, to the best of my knowledge, nobody anywhere is making monovariety wines with it.) In the early 2000s, the majority of producers in FVG preferred to use mostly the yellow biotype, as big, fat, rich wines were in demand. But in recent years, many winemakers have backed off using only the yellow biotype, because over-exuberant reliance can result in wines that are a little too low in acidity and much too ripe. Even so, in my view wines made with a little more of the yellow biotype in the blend generally age better. These differences aside, the Tocai Friulano variety is a favorite in FVG, where it has apparently been documented since the 13th century.