Country: Italy

Region: Friuli

Color/Style: White

Grapes: Ribolla Gialla

SO2: No sulfur added to the wine

Soil Composition: Shale, Clay

Farming: Organic (not certified)

Age of vines: 30 years old on average

Fining/Filtration: Unfined/Unfiltered

Fun facts: Ribolla Gialla is the area's indigenous grape.

The wine is released in 500ml and liter formats each vintage. Stanko believed that the 750ml size did not provide the right amount of wine for two people to share at dinner. Therefore, he wanted to bottle all of his wines in liters and half-liters so that two people could then have a half liter of white and a half liter of red.

In studies that he conducted with a cork manufacturer, a custom cork for these two bottles was designed that gives the optimal surface-to-air permeability ratio for aging their wines. It is a narrower, smaller cork than the classic model. In deference to this cork, Stanko himself created a prototype bottle from silicon for the new liters and half-liters, and then had them manufactured at a local bottle factory.

Appellation: Venezia Giulia IGT

Winemaking: The fruit is destemmed and gently crushed with a pneumatic press. It is placed in old Slavonian oak vats and fermented with native yeasts. It macerates with the skins for about three months (however long it takes to reach total dryness) with no temperature control and no sulfur. The wine is then racked and aged on its lees in huge Slavonian oak casks (25-35-hectoliters) for 3-4 years and racked twice a year. The wine is then bottled and aged for several years before release.

- Louis/Dressner

Big Bottle Wine

IGT Venezia Giulia Ribolla Gialla 2020 1L