In the steep, wooded hills of Oslavia, a few meters from the Slovenian border, Josko Gravner rebuilt his cellar around clay vessels buried in the earth and, in doing so, reshaped how the world thinks about white wine.
Backstory
The Gravner family bought a house and land in Oslavia in 1901 and began bottling wine commercially in 1973. Joško took over from his father in the early 1980s, at first making conventional blends. A 1987 trip to the United States left him disillusioned with modern winemaking, and after a devastating 1996 hailstorm destroyed most of his crop he turned to extended skin-contact maceration. A journey to Georgia led him to buy his first qvevri in 2000, and from 2001 his whites have fermented in clay.
The Region
Gravner farms in the Collio (Collio Goriziano) of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, on the hilly northeastern edge of Italy. The estate is best known for Ribolla Gialla, a thick-skinned local grape that reveals its full complexity only after long contact with its skins.
Winemaking
White grapes ferment and macerate for several months in beeswax-lined Georgian amphorae buried in the cellar, then age for around six years in large Slavonian oak before release, a production cycle of roughly seven years. Gravner uses dozens of buried qvevri and large wooden casks, producing around 22,000 bottles a year. He is widely recognized as the father of the modern amber and orange wine movement.
The Wines
The range centers on Ribolla and the white blend Breg, alongside the red Rujno and other bottlings, all unmistakably built on time, clay, and patience.
