Felluga Pinot Bianco "Illivio"

Light straw yellow in colour, it is aromatic and forward on the nose, with perfumes of candied peel and a touch of pineapple, white flowers and aromatic herbs. On the palate it is full but fresh, with creamy, white chocolate flavours with a long, nutty, mineral finish.

Livio Felluga emigrated from Istria and established his property in Brazzano in the 1950s. Convinced of the winemaking potential inherent in Collio and the Colli Orientali of Friuli, he bucked the trend of the times and started buying vineyards. Their landmark Terre Alte was first produced in 1981 and they have continued to make innovative and consistently high quality wines since. Winemaker Andrea Felluga has embraced stelvin in a characteristically forward looking way. After experimenting with the closure for five years, he felt confi dent in using the stelvin closure to retain freshness and perfume in his wines. The Felluga estate now owns 200 hectares in Rosazzo, divided into 300 vineyard parcels, and is now run by Livio's four children (Andrea, Maurizio, Elda and Filippo). The energy injected into the estate by the younger generation has been harnessed by consultant viticulturalist/winemaker Stefano Chioccioli. As a result of their combined work, the whites have acquired more intense and focused flavours, while the reds have a ripeness and suppleness that is seldom achieved in Friuli.

The vines are Guyot-trained, with an ecologically sustainable approach to viticulture.

The grapes were hand-picked into shallow containers in the last ten days of September.

The grapes were de-stemmed without crushing the berries and a brief maceration on the skins took place before soft pressing. The alcoholic and malolactic fermentations took place in French oak barrels (approximately 50% of which were new). The wine was matured in oak with lees contact for ten months. Bottled under Stelvin and cork in July 2008, it remained in bottle before release for a further nine months.

GOLD - Decanter World Wine Awards 2010