The settlers, farmers and the landscape of the Collio

Visitors to our local area, the Collio, discover just how beautiful it is. But why does the Collio appear as it does today? Grape vines have been around here since ancient times, yet the agricultural landscape in the distant past was very different. The land was farmed by smallholders who were largely tenant farmers and settlers, and the estates were rarely managed directly. It was they, then, who tilled the hillsides and who gave them the characteristic form we see today. They worked within a closed economy; after having paid the landlord, whatever was left over went towards the families’ survival budget and the wine was practically the only real form of “liquidity”. ... read more...

The Renaissance of Italian white wines

Things often happen when a man has an idea at an auspicious moment in history. This man, himself the son of innkeepers, was called Mario Schiopetto and the favourable moment in history was the great Italian economic boom. This was in the 1960’s... read more...

The Fiat 312 and the era of the “Professors”

Every revolution has its enemies, and the enemies of the revolution which was spreading outwards from the Collio showed themselves stealthily, with smiling faces. These were the years of mechanization of the countryside, and Italy was still largely an agricultural nation. The rural class, custodians of a thousand year working heritage and creators and guardians of one of the most beautiful rural landscapes in the world were trodden on roughshod in that they weren’t assigned any kind of cultural dignity.
They were defeated by the 312, an orange-coloured tractor made by Fiat ...read more...

The second wave and the youth revolution

Between the end of the 1970’s and the first years of the 1980’s, a group of young winemakers  appeared on the scene; their guiding light was Mario Schiopetto. The world was getting bigger and new restaurant trends and fresh culinary tendencies were establishing themselves in Italy. In the wake of this arrived the great French white wines. These young growers understood that the frontiers of quality could be pushed back further, and maybe due to that innate spirit of contradiction that exists between fathers and sons, for the first time it was they who began to look towards France.
They began to question two of the founding pillars of the renaissance of Friuli white wines ... read more ...

The present day. Between restoration and revolution

Many of the key figures involved in the renaissance of our white wines have now passed away: Mario Schiopetto, Douglas Attems and Luigi Veronelli. But our Collio is becoming ever more beautiful. The old wounds are healing and, in contrast to what often happens with buildings, the new vines are nicer to look at than the old ones. But the growers, who have shaped and tended this territory, ... read more...