`The 2021s from Borgo del Tiglio are flat-out stunning, perfectly blending the warm vintage with their energetic style of pure fruit infused with crystalline minerality.` - Eric Guido, vinous.com, January 2023
Between the Alps and the Adriatic, wedged against Italy's far north-eastern border with Slovenia, Friuli's Collio occupies a distinctive place in Italian wine culture. As befits an historic crossroads, a variety of wine traditions mingle here. Indigenous and international grape varieties rub shoulders, though as Nicola Manferrari at Borgo del Tiglio forcefully argues, many so-called 'international' varieties have been established here so long (often hundreds of years) that they have 'gone native' and developed into unique local clones.
Antonio Galloni has called Borgo del Tiglio 'one of the world's greatest estates'. Over forty years, Nicola has been a trailblazer for this region. He applied his ferociously scientific mindset to his family winery, and the old sites his grandfather had worked. The results have been spectacular. Old-time locals always knew Nicola's grandfather had the best vineyards around the town of Cormons; those in the know chose to drink in the bars he supplied.
While Nicola asserts that he is much more interested in the quality and age of vine material than what they are, his wines are brilliant expositions of their grape varieties. He put the local Friulano variety on the world wine map with delicate, complex, slightly savoury expressions. Malvasia is another local speciality; his luscious and textured Italo & Bruno Malvasia comes from a vineyard once owned by two brothers (who hated each other). His Sauvignon Blanc bottlings are richer and fuller than anything you'd expect from the Loire, with a floral, stonefruit profile; his Chardonnay is classy and chiselled. /NT
Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment Winter 2023
