The colour is medium ruby. On the nose sour cherries, dried figs, walnuts. In the mouth refreshing, with a medium long aftertaste.
This Schioppettino grapes based wine is made by Tunella winery under the Colli Orientali del Friuli DOC.
Schioppettino is a dark skinned grape variety native to Friuli-Venezia Giulia, in the far northeastern corner of Italy. Having declined in plantings massively in the late 19th and 20th Centuries, it was saved from extinction in the 1970s and is now regaining the respect and recognition it once enjoyed.
Schioppettino has been in viticultural use since at least the 13th Century. It remained popular in Friuli right up until the mid-1800s, when it was struck hard, first by the arrival of oidium in the 1850s, and then by the phylloxera epidemic of the 1860s, both from America.
Whatever hopes the variety had of being revived were soon dashed by the two World Wars, during which those responsible for tending the vines were called on to abandon their vineyards and fight. The postwar social and economic situation didn’t help neither. By the 1960s there were less than 100 Schioppettino vines left in existence, scattered across eastern Friuli.
Schioppettino is not Friuli’s only wine grape to have come close to oblivion. Two of the region’s other signature varieties, Pignolo and Tazzelenghe suffered a similar fate.
The finest Schioppettino wines come from the Colli Orientali del Friuli (“the eastern hills of Friuli”), which mark the border between Italy and Slovenia, where Tunella winery is located.
For this bottle I paid 19.50 EUR at the winery when I visited with my son during last year late October holidays.
Country: Italy
Region: Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Grapes: Schioppettino
Type: Red
Vintage: 2021
Producer: Tunella
Price range: Medium (15-30 US$)
Pascal’s Enjoyment Index: 3/5