Pinela - Vipavska Dolina, Slovenia

Image from Blue Danube Wine's website

It has been a few weeks since my last post and a lot has changed in that time.  Regular readers are probably aware that I live and work in the Boston area, and anyone who has been near a television in the past week or so is surely aware of what happened between the marathon on Monday and the manhunt on Friday of last week.  I was very fortunate to have been only indirectly affected by the bombing and its aftermath, but it was a very disruptive event in the lives of everyone in and around the city of Boston.  Life is getting closer to normal every day, though, and part of that return process is getting back to the things we love to do.  Tasting and writing about unusual wines is probably not all that important on a cosmic scale, but it is important in my own life and I hope it means at least a little to those who read regularly or sporadically.  In that spirit, it's time to get back to the weird grapes by taking a little trip to Slovenia to try the Pinela grape.

Though today's wine is from Slovenia, it is thought that Pinela (under the name Pinella) is originally from Italy.  It is first mentioned all the way back in 1324 in the Catalogo delle varietà delle vitis del Regno Veneto, where it was said to be used in the wines of Udine, Friuli.  It should be mentioned, though, that some sources (here and here) indicate that Pinela is actually indigenous to Slovenia, and, further, that there hasn't been any DNA analysis done to see whether the Pinella of Friuli and the Pinela of Slovenia are actually the same grape.  It seems reasonable to assume that the two are the same, since the region of Friuli borders Slovenia and many of the Slovenian regions where Pinela can be found.  Both Wine Grapes and the VIVC list the two grapes as synonyms, and that's good enough for me right now.  Whatever the case may be, Italy claimed 72 hectares of Pinella in their 2000 agricultural census, while Slovenia claimed 50 hectares of Pinela (or sometimes Pinjela) in their 2009 census.  The grape does not appear to be grown anywhere else in the world.

Slovenian wines are somewhat difficult to find on American shelves, but they've been growing vines and making wines in Slovenia for a very long time.  The Celts and Illyrians were making wine in the area known as modern-day Slovenia long before the Romans began introducing viticulture into the areas where France and Germany are now found.  Slovenia's history is turbulent, as the area has been conquered and occupied by a number of different European powers throughout its history.  It was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until World War I, when the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs broke away and formed their own country.  In 1928, this state merged with Serbia and in 1929, the country was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.  Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941 and control was divided between Germany, Italy and Hungary until 1945, when the Axis powers were defeated by the Allies.

After World War II, Yugoslavia became a communist state.  Though not as restrictive as many of the other eastern-bloc communist governments, being a communist state had detrimental effects on the development of the wine industry.  Josip Broz Tito was the leader of communist Yugoslavia until his death in 1980, at which point the political and economic climate of the region began to become less stable.  In 1987, a group of Slovene intellectuals publicly began to call for Slovenia's independence from Yugoslavia and a movement towards democratization began in earnest.  Several democratic amendments were passed in 1989, and in 1990, the Slovenian assembly changed the name of their region to the Republic of Slovenia.  Later that year, 88% of the Slovenian electorate voted for a sovereign and independent Slovenia and the country became independent officially on June 25, 1991.  The Yugoslav People's Army sent troops into the region on June 27 of that year and on July 7, a treaty was signed that ceased hostilities in the region.  A new constitution was adopted in December of 1991 and the EU recognized Slovenia as an independent state in January of 1992, with the United Nations following suit in May of that year.

**UPDATE** An anonymous commenter has informed me that my understanding of post WWII, cold war era politics is a bit mistaken in the paragraph below.  He/she says the following: "Just one note: Yugoslavia (including Slovenia), was not behind the iron-curtain. Yes, it was communist, but not part of the USSR controlled Warsaw-pact... What it meant in practice, was that free travel of people and goods was permitted and as such your statement incorrect that their position was like Romania, Hungary or Georgia. The first two were separate states behind the Iron Curtain, the latter was actually part of the USSR.
Your conclusions, that viticulture was falling behind modern standards remain correct. But the USSR had little to do with that. That was just the result of collective farming in a centrally governed market."  I want to thank that commenter and I offer his/her gloss here in the main text in the hopes that it will help other readers.  I'm not really sure how to fix my erroneous paragraph below, so I'm going to leave it as is so that the commenter's gloss makes sense in context.**

As we've seen with Romania and Georgia, spending time behind the Iron Curtain throughout the latter half of the 20th Century means that you were essentially isolated from the western World.  There was not a lot of movement of ideas or commerce between communist and democratic nations.  The former Soviet bloc countries have had to make up a lot of ground in a very small amount of time in order to carve out a presence in Western markets.  The former Yugoslav republics and countries like Hungary have had a little bit better time of it because they are geographically closer to western Europe, making tourism easier, and because they were never as dependent on the USSR and post-Soviet Russia as countries like Georgia were.  The degree of success that a given country has had following the end of the Cold War is, perhaps unsurprisingly, related to how well the country was functioning throughout the 20th Century, and while all of the former communist dictator states have had to play a bit of catch-up, some, like Slovenia, were better prepared and in a better position than others to do so relatively quickly.

All of which brings us back to Slovenian wine in general.  Slovenia is just south of Austria, just east of Friuli in Italy, just north of Croatia and just west of Hungary.  There are three major wine regions in Slovenia.  Primorje is located in the western part of the country, just over the border from Italy, and this is where most of the wines that we see on US shelves come from.  Brda is perhaps the most well known region within Primorje, but there is also Collio Goriziana (which is partly in Slovenia but which can be bottled as an Italian DOC), Koper and the Vipava Valley, where today's wine hails from.  The other two major wine regions of Slovenia are located on the other side of the country with Podravje in the northeastern corner and Posavje in the southeast.  Podravje (Drava Valley) is the largest of the three major regions of Slovenia and is known primarily for the production of white and sparkling wines.  Posavje (Sava Valley) is the only major region to produce more red than white wine (as a nation, Slovenia's output is about 75% white), but much of the production here is of the bulk variety.

I was able to get my hands on a bottle of the 2008 Batič Pinela (100%) from the Vipavska Dolina region of Slovenia (map here).  I bought the wine from the always excellent Blue Danube Wine Company for around $29.  The first bottle that I ordered was corked, but Blue Danube quickly sent me a replacement.   Pinela is a white grape, but this wine is made in an orange wine style, as the grapes are crushed and left to macerate on the skins for five days without any temperature control.  Natural yeast fermentation is followed by 24 months of aging in old Slovenian oak barrels.  The wine is bottled unfined, unfiltered (usually) and with minimal SO2 additions in the funky vessel seen at right.  In the glass the wine was a medium golden bronze color.  The nose was fairly intense with aromas of dried apple, cider, pear, dried leaves, hay, autumn spice and bergamot.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly high acidity.  There were flavors of dried leaves, dried apple, autumn spice, hay, orange peel and toasted nuts.  It clocks in at 14.5% alcohol and does wear it a little clumsily, but overall it was an absolutely wonderful wine.  It's warm and spicy with a great autumn vibe that would be deliciously appropriate at Thanksgiving, but which I'd be happy to enjoy any time.  It is best served no colder than cellar temp and in the company of valued family and friends.

Friulano - Friuli, Italy and Goriška Brda, Slovenia

There's a lot to be confused about when it comes to the Friulano grape.  First of all, there's the fact that, historically, virtually no one has called it Friulano.  Traditionally it was known as Tocai or Tocai Friulano in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy or as Tocai Italico in the Veneto region where the grape is thought to have originated (though this may or may not be a different grape altogether).  The name was banned in 2007, though, because Hungary was able to convince the EU that the name Tocai may cause some confusion with their great sweet wine, Tokaji, which Friulano has absolutely nothing to do with, at least not anymore.  There's a theory that perhaps Furmint, the grape used in the Hungarian Tokaji, was the original grape used for a wine known as Tocai Friulano, but that certainly isn't the case today.  There's also a theory that some Friulano vines may have been brought into Hungary as a result of a 17th Century marriage between a Venetian princess and a Hungarian count, but regardless of whether either story is true or not, we do know that Friulano is not used in the modern day production of Tokaji and has no relation to any of the grapes that are.

There was some confusion about just what the grape would be called when the EU naming restriction came into effect in 2007 since there were a handful of other names that were somewhat widely used.  Two of the most widely used alternate names were Sauvignonasse and Sauvignon Vert (which is also sometimes a synonym for Furmint, confusingly enough), which might suggest some kind of a familial relationship to Sauvignon Blanc, but it turns out that there isn't one.  The two vines do resemble each other quite a bit, though, and this similarity has caused some notable confusion through the years.  At some point, though no one is quite sure when, some of the Tocai vines made their way into France, either from the Veneto or from Friuli, and eventually into Bordeaux, where they were mistaken for Sauvignon Blanc and planted among the Sauvignon Blanc vines already there.  When some of the Bordeaux vineyards sent cuttings from their fields over to Chile in the 19th Century, cuttings of Friulano made the trip as well since the proprietors were unaware of the mix-up in their vineyards.  Phylloxera eventually killed off the Friulano vines in Bordeaux, which were replanted with the correct Sauvignon Blanc vines in the aftermath, but since Phylloxera never came to Chile, the mistake persisted until the 1990's when some visiting ampelographers noticed the Friulano vines amidst the Sauvignon Blanc vines in many of the Chilean vineyard sites.  Most of those vines have been pulled up since then and planted with true Sauvignon Blanc vines so that total planting figures for Friulano in Chile (where it is called Sauvignon Vert ) stood at less than 200 hectares by 2000.

Friulano is also somewhat widely grown in Slovenia (where it was historically known as Tokaj), which is just to the east of Friuli.  The border between Friuli and Slovenia is fuzzier than in many other places and there is a distinctive mix of cultures around where the two countries meet.  There are actually a few Italian DOC areas whose borders extend onto Slovenian soil, which is a situation that I'm not aware of anywhere else on earth.  There is an ancient wine making history in the area where Slovenia is now situated, but it's a bit difficult to speak of a Slovenian wine tradition since the country has only existed as a sovereign nation since 1991.  It was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until that country was dissolved after World War I.  In December of 1918, it was included as part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which became the Republic of Yugoslavia in 1943.  Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991 with mercifully little bloodshed and was recognized by the EU as an independent nation in 1992 and accepted as a member by the UN very shortly thereafter.

The first Friulano based wine that I tried was the 2008 Quattro Mani "toh-kai" from the Goriška Brda region of Slovenia.  Goriška Brda is an extension of the Collio region of Friuli onto Slovenian soil, meaning that it is very close geographically and traditionally to Italy.  I picked this wine up for about $10 from my friends at Bin Ends.  In the glass the wine was a medium lemon gold color.  The nose was moderately intense with lovely aromas of pineapple, white flowers, peaches and mint leaves.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were light pear, pineapple and lemon fruit flavors with a distinct and somewhat aggressive kind of vegetal and herbaceous edge to it.  There was a kind of stewed asparagus and tarragon character that I wasn't a particular fan of.  The nose was wonderfully fresh and perfumed but the palate just didn't follow through enough for me.  Wines made from Friulano are generally meant to be drunk young and this could have been a bit past its prime.

The second wine that I tried was the 2009 Bastianich "Adriatico" Friulano from the Friuli region of Italy.  I also picked this wine up at Bin Ends for about $13.  In the glass this wine was a medium lemon gold color.  The nose was reserved with peach and pear fruit along with some honeysuckle flower, orange blossom and marzipan.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of peach and orange fruit with a touch of honeysuckle flower.  There was also a touch of fennel to this wine, but the vegetal edge wasn't nearly as pronounced as in the prior wine.  Peaches were really the dominant flavor component with a some really nice flowery honeysuckle to boot.  I could have personally used a bit more acid, but it was fairly pleasant overall.  The general consensus on wines made from Friulano grapes is that they're nice enough but rarely have the depth or complexity of wines made from Sauvignon Blanc and I'd have to say that my experience matches up with that pretty well.  I doubt very seriously that I'll go very far out of my way in the future to drink Friulano based wines, but I certainly won't actively avoid them either.

Ribolla Gialla (Robola) - Friuli-Venezia, Italy and Cephalonia, Greece

Ribolla Gialla has many different homes but can still be difficult to locate.  I was somehow able to find three different bottles of Ribolla, all of which were from three different countries.  Oddly enough, those were the only three bottles of Ribolla I was able to find.  It's very rare for me to find an unusual grape variety with that kind of limited availability but with that kind of geographical distribution.  That's how it worked out, though, and now that I've pulled the cork on all three bottles, I'm here to tell you what I know about the grape.

It is thought that Ribolla Gialla (so called to differentiate it from Ribolla Verde, an inferior mutation of the grape) originally came from Greece and arrived in northeastern Italy by way of Slovenia.  It's not a coincidence then that the three bottles I was able to find were from Greece, Italy and Slovenia.  Today it is most well established in the Friuli-Venezia region of northeastern Italy and the recorded history of the grape really begins at some point after its introduction to this region.  In 1289 the grape is mentioned for the first time in a vineyard land contract and in 1402, the city of Udine passed a law making it illegal to adulterate wine made from the Ribolla grape.  In the 14th Century, the grape makes its literary debut as Giovanni Boccaccio lists indulgence of Ribolla wines as a sin of gluttony in one of his works, and, several centuries later, Italian writer Antonio Musnig lists Ribolla as the finest wine made in Friuli.

Life was good for the grape up until the 19th Century when phylloxera hit.  Like so many regions across Europe, Friuli-Venezia was hit hard by phylloxera and the vineyards were decimated by the louse.  And as in so many other regions, after phylloxera was contained, when the locals decided to replant their vineyards, many of them opted to plant grapes other than the ones that had such historical success in the region.  Friuli in particular looked to France for their grape varieties and much of the land was replanted to Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris (subsequently Italianized to Pinot Grigio).  By the 1990's, fewer than one percent of DOC level wines in Friuli contained any Ribolla at all. 

The grape has rebounded somewhat in the past decade or so, though it still is not widely planted.  Bastianich and Lynch lump the grape in the "others" section of the "Key Grapes" part of their profile of Friuli in Vino Italiano.  In Slovenia, where it is known as Rebula, the grape is limited mostly to the Goriška Brda region of Primorska which is essentially the eastern extension of the Collio region of Italy into Slovenian land.  In Greece, where the grape is called Robola, it is grown almost exclusively on the island of Cephalonia off the western coast of the country.  Interestingly, most resources on Greek wine don't indicate that their Robola is the same as Italy's Ribolla, though they are almost certainly one and the same.

**UPDATE**

After doing a little more research on Greek Robola, it turns out that the case may be much less clear than Jancis Robinson & Co. indicate in The Oxford Companion to Wine.  In his excellent book The Wines of Greece, Konstantinos Lazarakis mentions that Robola may be a catch-all term for many different white grapes that aren't necessarily related to one another, in much the same way as Vernacchia is used in Italy to represent a host of different grapes in different regions.  One genetic study in California found that the Robola they tested was genetically identical to a grape called Thiako.  A similar study in Athens found that the Robola they tested was actually the Goustolidi grape, which is completely different from and totally unrelated to the Thiaka grape.  Further, there are distinctive amepelographical differences between Ribolla Gialla and the Robola found in Greek vineyards that would indicate that they are two (or three or four) different grapes.  Without any definitive DNA testing, it's hard to say at this point, but hopefully future research will clarify the issue.
*********

As mentioned at the very top, I picked up three wines for this post, but only two were really worth remarking on.  The third was a 2000 Movia Ribolla from Slovenia.  The color gave this wine away really before I even tried to taste it.  It was a deep amber gold which you can see in the photo at right.  I don't usually take pictures of the wine in the glass, but this color was so remarkable I felt I should try to show it.  The nose was totally shot as well with a little nutty aroma and some butterscotch but mostly it was just a total blank.  I drank a few glasses of it anyway because I paid $25 for the bottle and figured I'd give it a shot.  The fruit was completely gone and there was just a hint of nuttiness left here.  If you were in an especially charitable mood, I guess you could describe it as minerally but in reality it was just an old bottle that should have been pulled from the shelf years ago.

The next wine that I tried was a 2009 Volpe Passini Ribolla Gialla from the Delle Venezie IGT which I picked up for about $18.  In the glass, the wine had a medium lemon color and a shy nose.  There was a little bit of peachy fruit, but this was another total blank.  I was starting to wonder at this point if the other wine was really shot or if this grape just didn't have much character.  On the palate the wine was on the lighter side of medium with fairly high acidity.  Again, the palate was pretty flavor neutral with some lemony notes and citrus peel flavors and a little bit of nuttiness that reminded me of hazelnuts.  The wine had a nice, clean minerally finish to it.  All in all, I can't say that this wine really appealed to me that much.  There was definitely a clear difference between this wine and the one that was obviously over the hill, but they were actually closer to one another than I would have liked to see.  "Mostly neutral" is my sum-up note and I guess I'll stick with that.

Never one to give up on a grape before giving it every chance to win me over, the next wine that I tried was a 2009 Gentilini Robola from Cephalonia, Greece, which I picked up from my friends at the Wine Bottega for about $20.  In the glass, the wine was a pale silvery lemon color with some green tints to it.  The nose was fairly open with grapefruit and lemon peel aromas with a whiff of stone fruit lurking the backgroun.  On the palate, the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity.  There was a lot of nice lemon-lime fruit with some citrus peel and a clean finish.  This wasn't terrifically complicated, but it did what it did very nicely.  The light lemony fruit was really carried by the snappy acidity and the minerally backbone.  Of the three wines that I tried, this was the hands-down winner and was the only one of the three that I would consider buying again.  This strikes me as a seafood kind of wine that wouldn't be too out of place with white-meat chicken dishes as well.  It's subtle and acidic enough to also make a very nice aperitif or a wine to just enjoy on a hot day.