Gravner Rosso Breg 2008

This wine is the only red wine made by Gravner nowadays. It is made from the local and indigenous variety called Pignolo, which is apparently very difficult to grow due to its inconsistency of production, and for this reason this red wine is only made in exceptional years: when there is a sufficient quantity of harvest and it is of excellent quality. And all this with only 1,000 bottles in the best of cases! This variety is known for its tannicity and therefore requires a lot of care in its production as well as a long time to refine the resulting wine.

The red wine is made in a similar way to the orange (or amber wine from Ribolla Gialla): the grapes are destemmed and put into Georgian amphorae (qvevri), buried in the underground cellar, for fermentation. The environment - the earth - naturally regulates the temperatures. After about 6-12 weeks of alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, and with constant punching down of the skins, the amphorae are emptied and the wine is racked into large old barrels for ageing for at least 5 years before bottling. After bottling, this Rosso Breg 2008 spent another 9 years in the cellar before release! 

Of the few Pignolos that exist in the world, this is certainly the most special!