Dario Princic’s Bianco is a non-vintage blend of Chardonnay and Sauvignon from his 10-hectare estate in Oslavia, a small village in the Collio subregion of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, just steps from the Slovenian border. The vineyards sit on steeply terraced slopes over clay-limestone and marl-sandstone soils locally called ponca, farmed organically without synthetic chemicals since 1988. The grapes are hand-harvested, destemmed, and macerated on the skins in open vats for 5 to 7 days shorter than Princic’s single-varietal bottlings, which see up to several weeks of skin contact. Fermentation is spontaneous with native yeasts. The wine is then aged in local wood before being bottled unfiltered and unfined, with only a small amount of sulfur added at bottling. The result is an amber-hued orange wine with texture from the skin contact but without the grip or tannic weight of Princic’s longer-macerated wines. Originally produced for his Japanese importer as an approachable everyday expression, it delivers concentrated aromatics alongside genuine drinkability. Princic is a member of the Vini Veri natural wine association and one of the founding figures of the Oslavia skin-contact movement alongside neighbors Josko Gravner and Stanislao Radikon.
