Dario Prinčič’s winery is located near the Oslavia Ossuary (built in 1938 to house the remains of 57,000 soldiers who died in the First World War), just outside the city of Gorizia, in the easternmost part of the Friulian Collio, on the border with Slovenia. We are in a borderland that, after having experienced the suffering of bloody fighting and devastation, remained abandoned until the reconstruction of the 1950s. The wine-making activity, which resumed in that period, did not want and, sometimes, could not even take over the traditional pre-war systems, driven by the market, to the conversion to a more modern, technological and international approach.
At the end of the 1980s, this was the setting for a small but inspired group of winegrowers who aimed to recover the traditions of their ancestors. Among them was Dario Prinčič who, since 1988, began to cultivate his 7 hectares southeast facing vineyards, with high density plants (about 8,000 vines per hectare) on land composed of the traditional Ponca (a mixture of marl and Pliocene sandstone of oceanic origin). The approach was, and remained, archaic-natural looking, with spontaneous grassing, the absence of weed control and chemical fertilizers, the use of natural pesticides such as copper and sulphur, and with almost exclusively manual interventions, also because of the strong slope of the vineyards.
The Cabernet Sauvignon grapes come from a small batch (no more than 1500 bottles are obtained per year) in which they are harvested manually and then destemmed and left to ferment, in the cellar, spontaneously, thanks to indigenous yeasts. The maceration on the skins is prolonged and variable, and takes place in open tanks without temperature control or addition of sulfur dioxide, with daily manual punching. The wine is then aged in large wooden barrels for 8 years, before bottling and marketing.
This 2007 vintage has a ruby color that begins to turn towards garnet, with the main hints of marasca cherry in spirit, blood orange, eucalyptus and pink tea, followed by syrup of black cherry, pomegranate, carob and blond tobacco, with final vinyl echoes and a bit of volatile acidity. The mouthfeel is very fresh, discreetly soft and sapid, with the volatile becoming more defined and supporting the sip together with the olive brine, pushing the aromas to a great verticality, up to a closing of good length.
Rating: 91/100
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