Renato Keber

– Friuli & Brda

Two distinct wineries here but as they are cousins and it’s only about 80 metres from one front door to the other, we’ll talk about them together!

We’re in the Collio, not far from Cormons, in the hills that rise abruptly from the plains of Friuli Isonzo and specifically we are on the hill/ridge that runs up to the Slovenian border little more than half a mile away. It’s the ‘Localita Zegla’, it’s a ‘Cru ’within the region and it’s seriously special, as in SERIOUSLY special!

Kristian (son of Edi) farms 12ha on the western side of the hill (Collio) along with just 2ha over the border in Brda, Slovenia. Tereza and her father Renato farm 11ha on the eastern side of the hill in Italy.

Grapes are predominantly Tocai Friulano, Malvasia and Ribolla Gialla with Sauvignon and Chardonnay taking one or two minor roles… playing them pretty impressively mind… and we’re talking more skin contact here than in the entire Emmanuelle trilogy.

There’s flavours on this page that simply don’t exist in the rest of this list and there’s drama, pzazz, energy, excitement and ‘F@*k me that’s good’ by the bucket load in every single one of these wines. They’re not cheap, they can’t be, you’ll understand when you visit, but they are absolutely essential drinking on those occasions when something really rather special is called for.

And then… a quick note about the wine ‘Zegla’… as far as we know it’s a unique concept. Three separate wineries, the two Kebers and Blasic just a few hundred metres up the road have agreed a series of guidelines, almost a recipe, … 100% Zegla fruit, 100% Tocai Friulano, agreed an identical picking date, wild yeasts, two weeks skin contact, 2 years minimum further ageing in either concrete, old oak or steel and then a release to the market in its 6th year. All the wines share exactly the same front label whichever of the wineries they come from and you have to look very closely at the back labels as well to find the differences. And to answer the obvious question, yes, they do all taste slightly differently when you look at them side by side… all brilliant… but subtly different.  With so few growers in Zegla the chances of them mustering the political clout to have Zegla recognised as a DOCG are about zilch and this felt like a good alternative way to bring focus and attention to the site. To start we are shipping the ‘Zegla’ from Renato Keber but we may add/ alternate/ change as we go…