The land gives us, for our part, more lessons than any books.
Because it offers resistance.
When pitting himself against an obstacle, man discovers himself. (…)
The farmer, when ploughing, draws out, bit by bit, certain secrets from nature, and the truth he uncovers is universal.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (from Borgo del Tiglio’s website)

I first had the pleasure of working with the Borgo del Tiglio wines while I was a partner at Grand Cru Selections in New York City. Being the only Italian speaker in the group, I was tasked with managing Nicola as a producer. We became fast phone friends, and he would call me almost weekly to talk about the matters of the world. I loved the chance to hone my Italian, which had gotten a bit rusty after living in NYC for so many years, and found him to be a very sensitive and profound individual – someone with an almost incomparable passion for the land and his vines.

His history is very fated. After university, he became a trained pharmacist, to make his family happy, and work at his mother’s pharmacy. In 1981, his father passed away, and it landed on Nicola to tend to his father’s passion project – five hectares of land, three of which were planted to vines. It was then that his destiny was sealed (much to his mother’s chagrin).

Nicola approached the vines with an inventor’s mind, having had no formal training. He ‘invented’ several techniques in Collio, only to later find out that these were common practice in France (like the first double Guyot vine training in the region, or the saignée technique for his Merlot, to increase the ratio between the skins and wine to obtain more color and more taste). He then taught himself French in order to read  François Champagnol’s Elements de Physiologie de la Vigne.

Nicolas was one of the first to keep old vines healthy and active, knowing from his botanical pharmacy classes that older plants would produce more powerful material. He also took learned from the Champenois to press fully ripe grapes softly (most in the region picked for acid, not for ripeness, making wines that were thin), to make a Friulano that was both powerful and soft; 1982 was his first vintage of Ronco della Chiesa.

He has been a role model for many in the region both for his inventiveness and for the sophistication he has brought to the wines of the Collio. Today, his son Mattia has taken over and is a perfect steward to carry on this lovely tradition.

Josko Gravner and Silvio Jermann, Manferrari was just one of a handful of producers in the 1980s who had the vision and courage to follow his convictions. Winemakers like Enzo Pontoni and Edi Kante, each in their own way, followed that same spirit. Still, Borgo del Tiglio remains vastly overlooked considering the quality of what goes into the bottle. So much of what is made in Friuli today is essentially commercial, large-production wine with little personality. In that context, Borgo del Tiglio is a towering presence of true excellence and a shining beacon of what is possible in one of Italy’s greatest but often most underachieving appellations.”
— ANTONIO GALLONI, VINOUS.COM

Milleuve
Milleuve Bianco is a blend of Friulano, Malvasia, Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Riesling from the Renano vineyards. The wine still made from the best grapes, with low-level production in the vineyard, and extremely thorough selection in the field….these are merely the barrels that don’t make it into the final selection. The grapes are pressed softly and fermented into small wooden barrels.

Milleponche
Milleponche Rosso is a blend of Montepulciano and Sangiovese cultivated on a hill in the Piceno area of the Marche. For some time, Nicola co-owned a fifty-year-old vineyard in this area and produced two single varietal wines, a Sangiovese and a Montepulciano. Any fruit not that doesn’t make it into the single varietal wines became Milleponche Rosso.

Collio Bianco
The Collio Bianco is made from Friulano, Sauvignon and Riesling. This blend started in 1989 when they were doing experiments for the first vintage of Studio del Bianco. It has the wonderful harmony of high acid Sauvignon and Riesling, which balance the body of Friulano.

Collio Friulano
This Friulano comes from a 60-year-old vineyard, which has a genetic diversity that is rarely seen any more in this area, due to Nicola and Mattia’s careful cultivation. The grapes come from the marl soils of Brazzano and Ruttars.

Ronco della Chiesa
Ronco della Chiesa is the crown jewel of this estate. The vineyard is located right next to the winery and was planted in the late 1950s to Friulano with local selezione massale. The variety is ‘green Tocai’, which is the most aromatic Friulano. The south-east facing vineyard overlooks the sea and is sheltered, but still gets the advantage of a warm onshore breeze, which is ideal for growing Friulano with great finesse. The soil here is typical of the Collio, and the mother-rock, known as Cormons Flysch, is made up of alternating layers of marl and sandstone through which trickle a small amount of water, even during the driest parts of the year. In the cellar, he presses softly to avoid excess extraction. The wine then spends about ten months in used French oak.

Malvasia Italo & Bruno
100% Malvasia Istriana. This vineyard comes from very old vines from two vineyards owned by brothers named Italo and Bruno. This wine is only made in the very best years. After pressing, the grapes have a brief cold maceration to allow extraction of aromas. It is finished in used oak barrels.

Sauvignon Etichetta Scura
Friulano Sauvigon Blanc is very different that French Sauvignon. Friulian Sauvignon Blanc has small, straggly bunches that do not produce a lot of fruit. It also has higher levels of acidity than its French counterpart, and has a bit more sugar. In Friuli it likes cooler slopes, so its best locations are east facing; thus,  Nicola ripped out all their south-west slopes. Their slope in Ruttars is ideal due to the high limestone content, which makes a Sauvignon that is very refined. In the cellar, they do a brief cold maceration and a soft pressing. As with all their wines, they are not protected from oxidation at the pre-fermentation stage, in order to improve the perfume and preservation over time. He then ferments and ages in small, used oak barrels. The dark label is only made from the very best barrels and the very best vineyards.

Chardonnay Etichetta Scura
Their Chardonnay comes from the hills of Ca’delle Ballade, between Brazzano and Ruttars. The cooler climate here (from the Bora, a cold wind that blows in from the northeast) allows him to pick later, thus having more phenolic ripeness and more complexity in the grapes. The soil is a reddish marl known locally as carantan. The vines for the Selezione come from an older vineyard that is higher in altitude. The wine is aged in about 30% new oak barrels.

Studio del Bianco
Typically 50% Friulano, 25% Sauvignon Blanc and 25% Riesling.  Nicola bought this vineyard, located on the south-east slopes of the Ruttars hill, in the spring of 1989. It was already planted on calcareous marl, and he had a sense that this vineyard would yield magical things. Generally, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling, though both aromatic varietals, come from different chemical families, and are thought to be incompatible. It is thus the Friulano that binds them together.  They harvest the Sauvignon quite ripe for it to be processed with the other two late ripening varietals. Even though these three grapes on their own would be a curious combination, the symphony of the three somehow works magically here. In the cellar, he does a co-fermentation of Sauvignon and Friulano, which typically does not go through malolactic fermentation. Then he does another co-fermentation of Friulano and Riesling. The wines are then blended and age in 250-liter barrels.

Rosso Riserva
100% Merlot is from a blend of vineyards in Ruttars and Brazzano. The grapes are de-stemmed and fed by gravity into large steel vats. After fermentation, the wine rests on the skins for another three weeks before being gravity fed into oak barrels (75% of which are new) to complete malolactic fermentation and age for two years.

Rosso della Centa
100% Merlot from a one-hectare vineyard on the south-west facing slopes of the St. Giorgio hills in Brazzano. This terraced vineyard is very steep and made up of layers of marl and sandstone with a base of clay, which is perfect for Merlot. This vineyard was most likely already around in the 18th century when the adjacent villa was built. During World War I, Italian soldiers occupied the villa and burnt it down before retreating, so that its contents would not fall into Austrian hands. Only the vineyard remained.