Marco Sara Friuli Colli Orientali Schioppettino 2022

Marco Sara is an eight-hectare certified organic wine estate in the town of Savorgnano del Torre, in the northwestern corridor of the Friuli Colli Orientali denomination. Savorgnano is not an official subzone of the Colli Orientali, but it is largely considered one because of its unique characteristics. It’s the the coolest area in the appellation, with a significant concentration of ponca soil, also known as opok in neighboring Slovenia, and as Flysch di Cormòns to geologists. Ponca is a friable marl, nearly-alkaline due to its high percentage of calcium carbonate, with alternating layers of clay or sandstone. The vineyards of Savorgnano are also surrounded by dense forests, with a dramatic backdrop of the Julian Alps. Naturally, botrytis cinerea is present every year and has a place in the culture of winemaking here, both for dry and sweet wines. Past generations of villagers of Savorgnano knew that this combination of factors were capable of creating great white wines, marked by saltiness and verticality. In fact, the best slopes with ponca were reserved for white grapes and the red grapes were planted on the lower, flatter parcels with more fertile clay. 

Marco Sara, whose first commercial release was 2003, comes from this lineage and mindset. He has clear convictions, which have been tested over the twenty harvests of his career. Though he runs with the 'natural wine crowd', he is convinced that some of its tropes--constant experimentation, maceration with white wine skins, the dreaded ‘funkiness’--have, paradoxically, obscured terroir, much in the same way as the superripe barriqued wines of the 1990s. His entire modus operandi is to make the terroir of Savorgnano speak clearly, with the grape variety being a mere vessel. He is a man dedicated to the ponca!

The young, soft-spoken yet ambitious Marco Sara is the fourth generation in his family to make wine. Marco has no formal winemaking background-- he didn't go to enology school or travel the world for a year tasting wine; he simply loves his family's land on the upper hills of the Colli Orientali of central Friuli. Marco, aided by his lovely wife Sandra, has pieced together a humble yet up-to-date winery under their house in Povoletto, north of Udine. They vinify both white and red wines all from the native local grape varieties: friulano, ribolla gialla, refosco, schioppettino, verduzzo and picolit. Winemaking is rigorously natural; native yeast ferments usually in stainless steel, no fining or filtration and little, if any, sulfur is used only at bottling.

Being a native Friulano, Marco is fiercely proud of his white wines (Friulano and Ribolla Gialla), and with good cause because they are quite special. Marco does not use skin contact for his white wines, rather they are directly pressed and fermented slowly in cement and stainless steel. They are pristine by bottling time and always showcase mineral, ripeness and a salinity that Marco attributes to the marne soils in his terraced vineyards. The reds, cuvees made from refosco, schioppettino and cabernet franc planted in 1968 produce elegant, spicy, earthy and profound wines. They are, of course, naturally fermented and age in old oak barrels, some Burgundian in size and origin others are larger and made of Hungarian oak.

This delightful red is made of 100% local Schioppettino, from a small 1/2 hectare vineyard from vines aged 20 to 60 years old. Maceration for 20/25 days in steel or cement, indigenous yeasts in large barrels or second passage barriques, with spontaneous malolactic fermentation. Very small production. Our US importer receives less than one palette per year.