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Azienda Agricola Gravner Francesco sits on the Collio slopes above Oslavia, a hamlet on the Italian-Slovenian border in Gorizia province. The estate is the home of Joško Gravner, the winemaker who in 2001 buried Georgian qvevri amphorae in his cellar and reset what white wine from Friuli could be. Today the family farms around 33 hectares of Ribolla Gialla and Pignolo with his daughter Mateja, working without certification but along strict organic and biodynamic lines.
Friuli Venezia Giulia
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Guided visit through the Gravner vineyards and the buried qvevri cellar, followed by a tasting of three wines from the current releases. By appointment only, limited to six guests per session. The tour is offered in English and Slovenian. Booking goes through [email protected] or +39 0481 30882.
EnquireGuided visit through the Gravner vineyards and the buried qvevri cellar, followed by a tasting of three wines from the current releases. By appointment only, limited to six guests per session. The tour is offered in English and Slovenian. Booking goes through [email protected] or +39 0481 30882.
EnquireThe Gravner name reaches Oslavia in 1901, when the family arrived from Hum, a few kilometres east in present-day Slovenia, and bought a small house with two hectares of vines. Joško Gravner, born in 1952, took the cellar from his father Francesco at twenty-one, and the company is still registered legally as Azienda Agricola Gravner Francesco. His daughter Mateja Gravner runs the estate today, and her son Gregor is being trained at her side. Oslavia is one of five informal subzones inside the Collio Goriziano, a band of hills facing the Julian Alps to the north and the Adriatic to the south. The Gravner property covers around 33 hectares. The vines sit densely planted on south-facing slopes of ponca, the Collio's friable marl-and-sandstone soil, and the holding now reads as a single biodiverse landscape with ponds, woods, meadows, and cypresses between the rows. Joško's career runs through every fashion the late twentieth century pressed on Friulian winemaking and out the other side. In the 1970s the cellar moved to temperature-controlled stainless steel. In the 1980s it filled with French oak barriques. By the 1990s he had walked away from both, returning to large Slavonian casks. After the 1996 hail vintage left him almost nothing, he began researching Caucasian winemaking, travelled to Georgia in 2000, and from the 2001 vintage fermented his white wines in qvevri buried in the cellar floor. The reds joined them in 2006. Forty-seven amphorae now sit beneath the cellar. Ribolla Gialla is the heart of the estate: skin-fermented in qvevri, the wine spends six months on skins, six months off, six years in large oak, and six months in bottle before release as Ribolla Anfora. Bianco Breg blends the estate's other whites in the same long, oxidative way. The reds Rosso Gravner (varietal Pignolo) and Rosso Breg follow the same patient timeline. From 2007 the labels left the Collio DOC for IGT Venezia Giulia, a quiet refusal of the appellation's stylistic norms. The estate farms organically and biodynamically without holding a certification: Joško has said he works that way for the vineyards rather than for the label. Annual production sits at roughly 35,000 bottles, all vinified, aged, and bottled at Lenzuolo Bianco. Gravner's amphorae are the reference point that revived skin-contact whites across Friuli and beyond, and the wines themselves remain among the most discussed white wines of Italy.
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
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Plate I · FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
Est. 1901 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 
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