Shop Visintini
Palmira, Oliviero and Cinzia Visintini are wine geeks of the best kind. You can see Slovenia from their farm, it’s the next line of low hills on the horizon, 6km away. Their grandfather Domenico Visintini bought the estate and its ruined medieval tower in 1884. A respectable portion of the original 13th century cellar is crammed with Palmira Visintini’s personal wine stash. Amphorae of biodynamically farmed Pignolo line the hallway outside, wine that won’t be ready to sell until 2016. In another restored alcove rest bottle of Refosco di Peduncolo Rosso and other cool indigenous grapes: Fruili actually has more indigenous reds than whites. The Visintini siblings do fine work with both.
Visintini is a clean, organized, efficient modern winery. The family are intellectual and inquisitive about wine, connected to the larger world outside of the Colli Orientali DOP and at the same time very aware of farms making interesting wine in Friuli. It’s fun to watch them hang out and talk shop with other growers in the local oenoteca in Cormons. Gossip about Colli Orientali and Collio is passed around, along with many bottles of the best wines of each DOP. And abundant prosciutto.
The Visintinis farm twenty five hectares of indigenous grapes (Ribolla, Verduzzo, Friulano, Franconia) the bulk of which are in close proximity to the cellar. The winery was significantly expanded in 1976 by Andrea (the trio’s father) allowing for their current robust 140,000 bottle annual production, more or less. The new portion built by Andrea rests a full six meters underground, perfect for long term storage of the estate’s amphorae and bottle-aged reds. Andrea also installed the mixture of cement and stainless steel tanks that are used to ferment and age Visintini’s white wines. Their guiding principle in the cellar is to do as little as possible. In the fields Oliviero is charting a path toward biodynamic agriculture. After years of organic farming they are recently certified, and have begun making their own biodynamic composts and other preparations.
