Jermann Vino dolce della Casa Picolit 2008
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Silvio Jermann does not look like a revolutionary. More like a shy young college professor. Nothing about him is aggressive or flamboyant, not even his fair good looks. Yet here is the man who changed Italian wine history and created a new era in white vinification.
Heir to a traditional Friulian winery - founded by his Austrian great-grandfather Antonio in 1881 -Silvio graduated from two renowned wine academies, Conegliano and Istituto di San Michele. As early as his senior year, he determined to explore new courses in wine-making, and soon moved to Canada. Silvio's voluntary exile broadened his scope and allowed him a freedom of research which would have been unthinkable at home, where his parents, Angelo and Bruna, favored more conservative views.
Today, Silvio has not only converted his parents; he has won over the wine-making world.
His extraordinary, multi-layered, extract-loaded whites are as many landmarks of contemporary viniculture. Their inspired individual style speaks of a will of steel, and an almost mystical view of wine; of Collio's incredible terroir and Silvio's daring flair; of tiny vineyards he personally monitors, and unique blends of indigenous and international varieties.
At once revolutionary and instant classics, immaculate and complex, these wines express the essence of each varietal character to its purest and fullest degree.
Apart from the classics, we find many regional gems of different styles.
Late harvest wines are probably the easiest to understand. Grapes are picked so late that the sugars build up and residual sugar remains after the fermentation process. Ice wine, a style founded in Germany and there referred to as eiswein, is an extreme late harvest wine, produced from grapes frozen on the vine, and pressed while still frozen, resulting in a higher concentration of sugar. It is becoming a specialty of Canada as well, where it takes on the English name of ice wine.
Vin Santo, literally “holy wine,” is a Tuscan sweet wine made from drying the local white grapes Trebbiano Toscano and Malvasia in the winery and not pressing until somewhere between November and March.
Rutherglen is an historic wine region in northeast Victoria, Australia, famous for its fortified Topaque and Muscat with complex tawny characteristics.
Collio is a crescent-shaped sub region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia that hugs right up against the Slovenian border. It is perfectly situated for growing wine grapes, especially of the white variety.
The Julian Alps to Collio’s north allow the influx of cool, nighttime breezes, while the Adriatic Sea to its south regulates the region’s temperatures. The area contains flysch soils,locally known as, ponca, a layered, sedimentary rock that formed millions of years ago as continents collided under the sea. Today the flysch soils that dominate the hills of Collio provide an interesting substrate for vine roots, with measurable mineral variations within small areas. The fractured layers of flysch soils also facilitate drainage and deepening of vine roots.
The region boasts a unique set of indigenous white varieties including Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia and the rare, Picolit. International whites—Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco, Sauvignon (Blanc) and Chardonnay—have also been in the area for well over 100 years. Today Collio is often associated with crisp, clean, floral and fruity whites. But in recent years, there has been a resurgence in popularity of the ancient Slovenian style of fermenting white grapes on their skins. This process retains additonal colors and phenols, producing a complex finished wine with an orange hue, warranting the term, "orange wines."
Reds are far less common but the indigenous Pignolo makes an age-worthy red, and the international varieties Merlot and Cabernet grow here as well.