2017 Ribolla Gialla

The Damijan family is happy to be finally settled into their new winery, which sits at the top of Damijan Podversic’s original steeply-terraced vineyards in Collio Goriziano. In an effort to further perfect their insistence on as little intervention as possible, the winery is designed in four levels, allowing fruit to be crushed and begin fermentation, then moved by gravity below for barrel-aging and refinement, and then finally further down for bottling and bottle aging. Speaking of which, Tamara Podversic mentioned their desire to use this space to begin holding back 4-5,000 bottles each year to create a library for later release. From the top to its cavernous inner chambers, and considering its location, overlooking the Carso to the southeast, Isonzo to the southwest and further out to the Adriatic Sea, the new winery feels almost like a monastery perched at the top of this hill. Frankly, I believe that’s exactly how Damijan and his daughter, Tamara Podversic, prefer it. Damijan Podversic believes very much that his main purpose here is to help the fruit reach its own healthy, perfect level of maturity in the vineyards, and all by natural means. Once the fruit and seeds are perfectly ripe, it’s more about coaxing them to become the wine they are meant to be, and not allowing himself to interfere too much with their natural course. Macerations and fermentations can last from 60 to 90 days, basically as long as it takes. The wine is then moved, guided by the phases of the moon into large neutral barrels, where it rests for three years prior to bottling. While this process has been perfected for many years here, the Podversic family is open to further experimentation; and as of now, there are a few vintages in the cellar that include small amounts of wine that underwent partial whole-cluster fermentation. It will be very interesting to check on these as barrels start to be blended. Until then, Damijan remains one of the benchmark producers in the region, a standard-bearer for the skin-contact movement.