Scolaris. Schioppettino

Venezia Giulia IGT
Grape: Schioppettino

Open and brambly on the nose, floral with some tannic grip, minty black cherry fruit. This is a round and lush, ripe, deeply flavoured red with a gently spiced finish.

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Schioppettino is an ancient Italian and Slovenian grape variety that has never moved far from its birthplace, the village of Prepotto, on the Itali;an side of the border. Schioppettino has been remarkably unlucky after phylloxera the viticoltori around Cividale were encouraged to plant it but sadly, by the 1970s it had all but vanished. Maybe it was saved by a ridiculous law passed in 1976 that impeded the planting of indigenous varieties. Which in turn led to a (successful) movement dedicated to overthrowing the law, thus saving Schioppettino as well as providing much needed publicity. Everybody loves an underdog and Schioppettino is now a cult wine.
Scolaris have access to old vines planted at 5000 vines per hectare on stony clay soils with alluvial origins. The vines are trained using a Guyot system and the yields are quite generous (for Schioppettino) at 9 tons per hectare. The grapes are picked by hand, crushed, then fermented in temperature-controlled steel tanks for 10 days. The wine is racked off the skins into cement tanks, where it matures for 5 months before being bottled.