Edi Keber 2021 Collio Bianco 'Vino da Uve Autoctone'

“At first veiled by a slight reduction, this 2021 Collio Bianco starts delicately, as if far off — slightly spindly and wending a tracing line like the aurora from the far horizon, broadening and growing illuminatory with time until the whole dome of your perception is coruscating aromatically. Faintly fragrant at first, with finely-wrought aromas of jasmine-tending-frangipani, meyer lemon pith, mica chips, and a sweetly green element — not underripe, but reflective of spiny cucumbers, or perhaps rockmelon. Increased aeration exposes deeper-pitched notes that tend constantly towards filling out the aromatic profile. Peach and nectarine skin; then fresh nectarine; jalapeno and preserved green peppercorn; then white peach; then dried yellow peach as things deepen; then chamomile with stem ginger. We have arrived.

The palate is singularly prismatic. This is a rare wine which possesses an expansive quality; I do not mean merely expanding in the palate, I mean its qualities extend almost exponentially beyond itself, that is, at first it appears you have got the measure of it in two dimensions, and then it adds a third. The palate is supple and elegant, with a sensation of tautness from one end to the other, with petrichor-like mineral notes at the core, wrapped in stony qualities, with fine, pinpoint phenolics skirting around the edge. Spectacular ripe yellow apple notes open the parade of flavours; these segue into ripe nectarines before bitter stonefruit skin elements add complexity. There is a fascinating green but not underripe note at play here, slightly elusive; I think of quinine and wild cucumbers as the best analogue. The finish: relatively compact space-wise, yet long, salty, and stony.

This is one of the greatest Italian whites I have tried in a long time, and that includes anything out of Abruzzo. Stepping back from the above details, this wine is simply really really good.”

— David