Friulano

Sauvignonasse, an old vine from the Gironde area of south-western France, where it once grew beside Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, turned out to be the same grape as Friulano. Despite the resemblance in name, DNA analysis shows it is not an offspring of Sauvignon Blanc, and its true parents are still unidentified. French plantings have dwindled to the point that the vine is missing from the national variety register.

The vine reached Friuli at the start of the 1800s, and by 1825 local records list it as Tokai. By the 1930s the longer name Tocai Friulano was in use. That borrowed name drew on the standing of Tokaji, much as Alsace growers once did with Pinot Gris. For most of the twentieth century, Italian growers and ampelographers treated it as a distinct local variety, possibly of Hungarian origin. Morphological studies in 1992 and microsatellite profiling published in 2003 then identified it as Sauvignonasse. Separate ampelographic and DNA work showed that the grape marketed in California as Sauvignon Vert was really Muscadelle.

The naming dispute goes back to a 1993 wine agreement between the European Community and Hungary. The Court of Justice upheld the protection of Tokaj in 2005, and from spring 2007 Italian bottles could no longer show the word Tocai. Italy's variety catalogue continues to list the vine as Tocai Friulano, yet labels read Friulano. In Slovenia, growers use Sauvignonasse, Zeleni Sauvignon or invented names such as Jakot (Tokaj spelled backwards), and producers outside the EU may still sell it as Tocai Friulano.

Friulano is vigorous, fertile and productive, so keeping yields modest is the main lever for quality; unchecked crops yield dilute, neutral wine. Budbreak is early and ripening is early to mid-season, which suits the warm, sheltered hillsides of Friuli. Disease pressure is the weak point: grey rot, sour rot, esca and both downy and powdery mildew all affect it, so open canopies, good airflow and careful leaf removal matter, particularly in wet vintages. Hillside vineyards on the layered marl and sandstone known as ponca in Collio and the Colli Orientali tend to give more concentrated fruit than fertile plains sites. In Chile the vine has often been planted by mistake or for convenience as Sauvignon Blanc, and it is more vulnerable to fungal disease than that variety.

Most Friulano is dry, still and unoaked, fermented in stainless steel to keep the almond, herb and pear character clean, usually with moderate alcohol and a rounded mid-palate. Better producers use lees contact, large old casks or partial barrel fermentation to add texture without masking the grape. In Collio the varietal wine must contain at least 85 percent Friulano, and the variety also forms part of the region's white blends, often alongside Malvasia Istriana, Ribolla Gialla and Chardonnay. Skin-contact versions, made by a few producers in Collio and across the border in Slovenia, give amber wines with grip and dried-herb notes. Examples from top sites can age for five years or more, picking up nutty, waxy and honeyed tones, and some Argentine bottlings from Mendoza have also proved surprisingly long-lived.