Collio, a DOC since 1968, occupies a band of hills in the province of Gorizia that stops only because a national border runs through it: on the other side it continues, identical, under the Slovenian name Brda. The position explains the wines. The Adriatic is a few dozen kilometres away and sends mild air inland, the Julian Alps behind block the northern cold, and the gap between day and night stays wide.
The soil has a name people here use in ordinary conversation: ponca, an alternation of Eocene marls and sandstones, friable and poor. It is the technical reason Collio is white-wine country — ponca gives wines built on salinity and endurance rather than abundant fruit.
The signature grape is Friulano, and its name is a piece of European legal history. It was called Tocai Friulano until 2007, when protection of the Hungarian name Tokaj forced the term to be dropped. Same grape, new label. Alongside it stand Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia Istriana, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon and Chardonnay, plus Collio Bianco, the blend, which for many estates is the most serious wine they make.
It was from these hills, and from Oslavia in particular, that skin-contact maceration of white grapes — the wines now called orange — was revived in the late 1990s, an old practice of this eastern border that went from here back into the world's argument about wine. Not all of Collio does it and it is not the prevailing style, but this is where the debate started.
