Lis Fadis. Merlot 'Gian'

Vino Rosso
Grape: Merlot del Peduncolo Rosso

Endless depths of deep, sweet black cherry and brambly fruit. A powerful and mature tannic structure corseting an immense and complex wine.

Link to Lis Fadis Producer Page

Lis Fadis have chosen to name their wines after fairies, and legend has it that Gian is strong enough to help the loggers of Carnia move felled trees out of the forest; a reticent, quiet character by nature with a love of strong cheese and a tongue easily loosened by a fine Merlot.
This very particular Merlot is from the legendary ‘biotype’ (clone): ‘Merlot del Peduncolo Rosso’, loosely translated to Merlot with red feet. A clone found only in the hills of Ipplis, when the bunches are fully ripe, the stems supporting the berries become reddish.

When Vanilla and Alexander acquired the land, there was a small legacy of this treasured biotype and these original vines are now over fifty years old. They have since been joined by massal selections planted in 2002.

The vineyard is an amphitheatre of vines facing to the South-West, at an altitude of between one hundred and eighty and two hundred metres above sea level. The soils are mainly marls over limestone.
A classic single Guyot system is used with under a kilogram of fruit taken from each vine.

The grapes are picked by hand and examined on a vibrating sorting table before being crushed and fermented between 25-27˚C in temperature-controlled concrete tanks.
When the fermentation is finished the wine is decanted (using gravity) into barrique where it remains for two years and goes through malolactic conversion. It is then bottled without filtration and kept in the cellars for at least a year before being released.