Nicolini - Muggia/Trieste, Italy

An old church in Friuli's Muggia: Santi Giovanni e Paolo, 1263.

EXPLORING AN ISTRIAN WINTER

(This article starts way back - not so far as the churches - but is encompassing and several times updated.)

January 25, 2013.
Muggia's stylish Rossana Nicolini is charming, but maybe not so much on our first meeting... With daggers in her eyes, pointing at the church pictured below, she says- "THIS is the old church!"

THE old church of Muggia: Santa Maria Assunta, 931 a.d.

And if looks could kill, this article would never have been written, and, I wonder with a certain suspicion if the local population of Muggia would somehow harbor a few less souls too.

L'AVVENTURA E FRIULI

Further afield during Italian wine explorations years ago, making new contacts, asking questions, learing more- we made our way to Friuli's then remote, solid-rock Carso plateau near Trieste. Yes it is Friuli, but Carso and more well celebrated Collio, are different as ducks and Volkswagens.

In those days we made the first of many visits to the great Sandi Skerk, learning first-hand about "Appellation Carso" with its lovely grapes- Glera, Teran, Malvasia Istria and Vitovska. Back then we'd only heard of a special hamlet-like vinous enclave engaged in farming lovely, rare and indigenous grapes- even further south- near Muggia.

Where's Muggia you may ask? Well, so did we! The Italia-Slovenija border (map below) tightly wraps its undulating edge around Sandi Skerk's cellar (near the Trieste Golf Club!) as well as Rossana Nicolini's vines like a rubber band surrounds a brick. Sandi looks out his east-facing Italian window into Slovenia's rock-fenced fields as Rossana's Italian windows look out at the port of Trieste to the north and upon a bank of Slovenian hills, only a few feet away to the south. Rossana and husband Giorgio's winery "Nicolini", is on the northernmost part of the Istria Peninsula jutting out below the bay below Trieste.

Our E&R Wine Explorer radar focused us on a tiny production, wholly dedicated family winery making Borgana Nera Istriana, Refosco, Malvasia Istriana and Piccola Nera. Let's face it, only a Trappist Grinch would frown on checking out wines produced with grapes like those. (No harm intended to monks or grinches out there!) For, it remains curiosity; the leader by a nose, which motivates team E&R to do our best to welcome with open arms new wine experiences (after tasting, it becomes a different thing).

Vineyard with a view. Nicolini vines from west of Slovakia’s Klanec Price Kozini. Tieste in the background.

AS SOME CAT SAID-
"WE'RE ON THE ROAD TO FIND OUT"

Perhaps readers recall how impossible it was to locate Sandi Skerk's place? Four visits so far and not once have any of us been able to find it on our own. Sandi now laughs: when we are close by we call and he asks where can he find us to lead us in! Turns out finding Skerk was as easy as finding sand in the Mojave compared to finding Rossana.

We'll get to the wines, but lets start with the basics: Americans in Italy. First off, if you have traveled in Italy you already know that cell phones are virtually impossible to maneuver; what with region codes, +'s, 4G, 3G, no G's, Ali G and so on; most of us end up making a local Italian call which ends up threading through Dallas to be connected... to? Next up is the famed "sistema di posizionamento globale" (GPS)- an equal opportunity messer-upper. Our Italian car came complete with a nifty French language GPS (the programming disc was at the dealer's in Paris), so just try following your sistema di posizionamento globale plan when written and spoken in French for travel in Italy. It is a challenge. For the pièce de résistance, recall we are in Muggia where this sentence looks like this-- "ta stavek je videti takole". Even meager Italian is of little value: Slovenian phone operators, Croatian tower signals, Italian airwaves, impenetrable answering machine messages and angry-sounding phone company recordings impossible to decipher.

And then, what if, what if your party answers?? Parla inglese? Gavorite anglesko?

Having been around the block a few times, we made the best of our GPS and took out our maps. Without being too, too late for our 9 AM appointment, and by asking lots of questions in the old town square (well actually we did not ask lots of questions, we asked the same question many times), we were finally able wiggle and writhe our way up, up, up and around and around to find Rossana's street address- yes it was our street there- atop Muggia! Parts of the street were narrow enough to force us to pull in the side view mirrors, but worse than that- the street and house were looking not even remotely like a winery. The neighborhood was more likely housing some fine private cellars.

Right town, right street. Our number was Localita Fontanella 26a and here in front of us was # 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Well. It was time to pull out the phone(s). After stuttered conversations in part English, German, Italian, French and Slovenian (all true), after being cut off and the dropped calls, we were able to ascertain the best plan was to go to the old church and hang out until Rossana and Giorgio came to rescue us. We did. Some time later, and still waiting, after more calls and hand gestures (we could only see ours), we decided that both us and they were at the old church. When Rossana was able to determine we were at the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (1263) and she and Giorgio were at the church of Santa Maria Assunta (931 a.d.), she said "wait there!". After about ten minutes we "connoitered", rolling down windows, chattering and then following them out of the piazza, around the bay and up the hill. Then our modest car caravan pulled off the road quickly- right by the 931 a.d. church- with Rossana less than cheerfully pointing out that Santa Maria Assunta is indeed the old church. We moved on...

The bulk of the reds of the Nicolini "cellar.”

THE NICOLINI WINERY

By the way, it turns out Rossana is great! She's articulate, cheerful, concerned and genuine. She and her husband/winemaker- Giorgio - invite us into their living room to handle proper introductions, talk about their wine-making philosophy, and find out just who these Americans - coming from some podunk wine shop all the way across the far side of the USA to seaside Muggia- are. Giorgio, serious and stately, but quick to smile, is a renegade (rinnegato) artisan in the best of ways. No filtering of his wines, no added SO2 for the reds, all organic farming, no additives, working with grapes not officially allowed in the region and removing appellations in favor of making wine he feels is best.

Giorgio Nicolini produces wines of no compromise via organic and biodynamic method - they are as natural as natural wines come. The grapes are household names - pretty much only in the Nicolini household: Piccola Nera, Borgogna Nera, Malvasia Istriana, Moscato Gialla Istriana and Refosco.

The Nicolini's are gracious hosts in their comfortable home serving us great coffee and snacks. Clocks no longer exist. Our late start (not one wine tasted yet!!) is worsening after an hour into a scheduled (by us) two hour visit. We ought to be in a hurry with another appointment looming, but how can we be? We are all warming up to one another as we share bits and pieces of two different and far apart homelands; old church or not, we want to hear more, learn more and share more.

OZMIZA NICCOLINI! The real tasting turns into an "ozmiza", the traditional Friulian 8-day open house for any and all guests and friends to stop by house to house to enjoy each families house-made cold cuts, salads, sausage, bread and wines. The Nicolini crew of Rossana, Giorgio and smiling Livio were fully prepared with hosts of home and house-made treats with plenty of Nicolini wines included!

We head back out across the yard with the stirring, wintry view of Trieste and its protected bluish bay of Adriatic sea (This is a fine place to mention the great book by Jan Morris "Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere". For Trieste visitors, it's a must; for all others its simply a superb and engaging book.) and make our way to the winery. Folks, it is small; pool-hall sized, intimate, jammed: a place where work gets done and super wine gets made. The population includes a half dozen old barrels of various size, a few tanks and other "vessels"; all inclined to a feeling of a place being in good hands.

The winery is small, as is the vineyard and their production. We are literally on the top and side of a hill- in a spread out neighborhood of sorts. There simply cannot be many wineries in the vicinity, we know of none, nor do we ask. The Nicolini's, both former Italian Power Company employees, own the proverbial two hectares of land, though less than one is under vine (about two acres!). Vines range from 20 to 30+ years of age with an annual production of about 400 cases. Yes, 400 cases. While the family wine-making production began in 1990, wine was sold there since at least 1918. As Giorgio explained, the micro-climate in Muggia is unlike Collio or Carso- its "Istrian"- with more clay in the soil and a heartier sea influence via its peninsular location; colors and flavors are different, the wines have their own soul which is partly Istrian and part Nicolinian.

As we prepare to taste, one fief rising, glasses in hand, notebooks ready, all eyes are on Giorgio, the pourer. As we begin, we are joined by the congenial appearing (but silent) Livio Nicolini; Giorgio's father. Our tasting notes and descriptions of the really cool wines are below. After the hour or so of tasting new wines and older ones, with Papa getting happier by the taste (we were spitting, but not sure if he was) (he wasn't), and with us thinking we were ready to sail on to the next appointment only an hour or two late, Giorgio says we need to come into the little kitchen and taste the current wines now in the bottle! These Muggians know how to host, appointments be damned!

(E)

Click on each wine for more detail.

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