Martissima Collio Bianco

Category: Wine - Still - White

Region: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

Appellation: Collio

Marta now owns and works just one vineyard. It’s a small, low-slung, southeast-facing plot on ponca, a sedimentary rock of layered sandstone and marl. The plot is divided into four small parcels completely surrounded by forest. It’s planted to a mix of malvasia, ribolla gialla and friulano “planted randomly in the 70s,” as Marta notes, among vines of merlot and refosco.

Farming organically, Marta’s emphasis is on handwork — and horsework. She relies on her pair of Arabians for the high-quality compost she uses to make her own organic fertilizer. Her aim is to stimulate the development of native microorganisms who, in her words, “permit a soil full of life.” Her hope is to incorporate more animals into the vineyards soon, to restore the natural balance that human influence has distorted. In the cellar, Marta’s objective is “to intervene as little as possible and maintain the integrity of the grapes.” For her Collio Bianco, a blend of equal percentages of malvasia, ribolla gialla, and friulano, the grapes are picked into boxes, pressed directly, and co-fermented. Fermentation starts spontaneously, two-thirds in stainless steel and one-third in barrique. If malolactic happens, she lets it. When fermentation finishes, she racks into tank and does battonage once a week for a
month.