Piquentum, Malvazija

Description

Originally built in 1928 and converted into a war shelter in the early 90s, and now a winery, it’s the classic tale of a son of a Frenchwoman and an Istrian father growing native Croatian grapes in an old Mussolini era concrete water tank.

The name “Piquentum” is the ancient Roman word for the beautiful hilltop town of Buzet. Istria is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic. Croatia’s westernmost region, it borders both Italy and Slovenia.

Grapes are hand picked and then slowly pressed into the tank without temperature control. Since the winery is a converted concrete water tank, the temperature is a constant 10-11ºC all year long. This is perfect for aging, but this is often too cold to get a native fermentation started. Using fans to draw in the warmer outside air to around 14ºC, all of Dimitri’s wines complete a wild ferment without the use of added yeast, bacteria, enzymes, or any additives. After a long and slow fermentation without stalling fermentation or cold soaks, the wines are bottled unfiltered with just enough sulphur to ensure a safe journey across the Atlantic.

The wine has a touch of skin-contact, which adds a grippy texture to the wine, in turn adding richness. It’s an extremely food friendly wine! 

The circles on the label of the wine, signifies rainfall for each month throughout the harvest year, and changes with each vintage.

Grapes: Malvazija

750 ml

13.5% ABV

Contains Sulfites.