An evening with the Carso Boys

A trio from Carso. (Photo: Jon Bonne/The Chronicle)

A few weeks back as Italian winemakers were whistling through town, I got a chance to sit down for dinner with three of the top producers in the Carso region just outside Trieste, where Italy’s Friuli region butts up against Slovenia.

This part of the world has gotten plenty of attention of late, not least because of the efforts of the Movia winery and proprietor Ales Kristancic, whose charismatic ways have drawn favor to the Collio region that also straddles the border.  Carso is just a touch farther south — if you think of northeast Italy as an arc over the top of the Adriatic, Carso (or Kras, in Slovenian, which is spoken with equal ease hereabouts) is about as far as you can stretch before you run out of Italian soil.

It is home to its own set of wine celebrities. Two producers, Benjamin Zidarich and Edi Kante, have particularly made inroads for their work with the indigenous Vitovska grape, found almost nowhere else; another, Sandi Skerk, is less well known on these shores (in part because the wines are rarely imported), but Skerk is president of the local consorzio and the wines are benchmarks in the region. (The fourth notable Carso producer, Vodopivec, shows up here with some regularity.) As with much of the Friuli region, these producers have not only intense focus on white winemaking but on skin fermentation and other traditional techniques.

And so a Delfina dinner was set: Skerk, Zidarich, Goran Kante (Edi’s cousin), their coordinator Marisa Huff, and me.

“The Carso is basically a land without a soil,” Kante began over glasses of his family’s KK Brut, a Franciacorta-inspired fizz.

Which is to say: There is a limestone subsoil, but little topsoil. To create a vineyard, deeper soils have traditionally been dug up from near Trieste and trucked in, enough to provide about 80 centimeters depth of red earth. It can take up to 1,000 truckloads per hectare (2.47 acres) to fashion a vineyard — which should provide food for thought to anyone who’s witnessed a D5 in Wine Country or who wants to argue about terroir being defined by inherent soil types.

On the other hand, this is how it has long been done in the Carso. And once a vineyard is set, replanting or soil amendments are rare. “Our grandfather did the same,” Kante continued.

It was Edi Kante who first bottled wine in the Carso around 1980 with the intent to sell it farther afield, and his work has led to around 40 producers who now do the same. (Among Kante’s quirks is the use of narrow-necked 500 ml and 1 liter bottles, with a smaller proportion of exposed cork, a technique shared with Friuli’s Stanko Radikon.)

If Kante’s wines typically age in untoasted small barrels in a nearly-freezing cellar for a year, with little skin contact, Zidarich takes a more old-school approach — fermenting in open wood vats with more time on skins, left in large wood casks (botti) for two years before bottling. Kante attempted more skin contact in the 1990s, leaving must on the skins for five or six days, but ultimately opted for a fresher and lighter profile.

It has been more typical for Carso producers to blend their white grapes together, but Vitovska is “a grape variety that unites the entire territory,” Zidarich told me.  Its thick skins made it both reliable in the vineyard and a good candidate for an orange-wine treatment.

“There’s a lot to get out of there,” Zidarich continued. “You taste more of the fruit. You taste more of the Carso.”

The two Vitovskas that evening were almost electric in their acidity. It contrasted to the next three wines, all Malvasia based. But the local Malvasia Istriana grape (so named for nearby Istria, the Croatian peninsula that dangles into the Adriatic south of Trieste) is different from the Candia subvariety found farther south. For one, its thinner skins allow for an orange wine with far less tannin than examples from, say, Massa Vecchia or La Stoppa. These three were true to type; the Kante showed that house’s typical balance of clean mineral and opulent fruit not unlike long-aged specimens of Muscadet. The Zidarich and Skerk were far showier and almost nutty, their skin efforts evident.

The Carso tradition of blending whites remains, and led to perhaps the evening’s most compelling wine: Skerk’s 2008 Ograde, a mix of Malvasia, Vitovska, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio. It was one of those skin-contact wines that transcends curiosity and shows the potential of the orange.

We ended with a couple examples of the Carso’s little-known red, Terrano. Related to the Refosco grape, it delivers a pungent, Barbera-like wine that often hovers below 12 percent alcohol and rarely sees the influence of any oak.

Though Carso’s established wine history is remarkably young for Italy — essentially having launched in the past 30 years — it has made a fierce claim for tradition similar to that found elsewhere in Friuli, as though it had skipped the decades of Italy’s fascination with international varieties and jetsetting enologists. Which explains why we landed the evening on a generally disapproving discussion of the modernists in Barolo.

“The world of wine is going to have to take a step back before it can take a step forward,” Zidarich concluded. “We have gone too far.”

Thus the wisdom from Italy’s far edge.

2008 Kante Venezia Giulia IGT Vitovska ($55/liter):  Electric. Full of grated lemon, steel, padron pepper and a  baby’s-breath freshness, balanced by a dense texture. This style is the evolution from Kante’s skin-contact work, retaining the mouthfeel but not the evolved flavors. (Importer: Domaine Select Wine Estates)

2008 Zidarich Carso Vitovska ($57):  The complete skin-ferment counterpoint to the Kante. More evolved and opulent, with a pleasing tin-like mineral bite. Hay, jasmine tea, Bergamot peel, with a remarkable density and plump texture, balanced by tons of acid energy and subtle tannins. A gorgeous orange expression. (Importer: A.I. Selections)

2008 Zidarich Carso Malvasia ($57): Zidarich is skeptical about the skin-contact potential of some Malvasia (like the Candia) but this is unabashedly showy and ripe, with sugary apricot and carrot, and the floral accent coming through as heady lily. There’s bright citrus as well, and it resolves by showing its tense, mineral-packed core. The acidity here is well-cloaked but profound. (Importer: A.I. Selections)

2008 Skerk Carso Ograde IGT ($n/a): A blend of Malvasia, Vitovska, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio. Instantly appealing in a  funky way, with polished tangerine, lime zest, green almond and hay. The opulence and softer edges add to the appeal, yielding something completely elegant while not abandoning its esoteric nature. (Importer: n/a)

Jon Bonné