Ronchi Di Cialla New Arrivals

STAFF PICKS 2024 - GAB POY

This is the perfect wine to pair with cheese after lunch. In fact this year I'm keeping the menu so simple that I've replaced a meat course for a spread of cheese and this beauty. It's a sweet wine but not unctuously so.

A heady mix of honeysuckle, quince blossom and sweetly spiced oranges leads into a sweet and vibrant core tinged with saffron and minerally tones. It bursts onto the palate with great vibrancy and signs off with some please bitter marmalade-like phenolics. With seven years under its belt, its honeyed texture glides across the palate; the perfect wine to serve with cheese. GAB

Ronchi di Cialla is a small family led winery in the pristine valley of Ciall in Friuli. Prized for its biodiversity and unique insects, it's a paradise for life and living.

Wonderfully exotic yet incredibly fresh, the 2017 Verduzzo lifts from the glass with a bouquet of exotic florals, young peach and green melon. This opens with a balanced inner sweetness complicated by salty minerals giving way to tropical citrus and ripe orchard fruits, as confectionary spices cascade throughout. The 2017 finishes vibrant and clean, leaving the palate perfectly reset for another indulgent sip. I would never guess that this finishes at 30 grams of residual sugar per liter. The harmony within is something to behold. Eric Guido, Vinous

This is not just a historic winery, but also a historic family. The wines that they are producing today deserve serious consideration.

The 2022 Schioppettino RiNera wafts up with a gorgeous bouquet of dusty rose petals, violets, blackberries and a white pepper tinge. It is lifted and finessed with crisp wild berry fruits and mineral tones that come across as vividly pure, as juicy acidity enlivens the experience. A slight sour citrus twang forces the mouth to water as it finishes with excellent length, yet fresh. Lovely at room temperature but also at cellar temperature. ERIC GUIDO, Vinous

Ronchi di Cialla’s Schioppettino is an iconic and historic wine in the true sense of those words, and Italy’s finest expression of the grape. IAN D'AGATA

Much of the estate's fame stems from the revival of the grape schioppetino. A once revered grape native to the region but at the time almost completely extinct. Paolo (now deceased) is almost singglep-handedly responsible for its revival. The Rapuzzi’s vines are still considered the benchmark. Production levels are much lower than those defined by the Ministry of Agricultural Resources and there has been significant work in the vineyards and terraces to continually maintain the historic site.