La Castellada sits on a hill above Oslavia, a hamlet of 200 people on the Slovenian border that has produced more macerated white wines of international reputation than almost anywhere else in Italy. The Bensa family work ten hectares of ponca marl on the Collio frontier, fermenting Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, Chardonnay, Sauvignon and Merlot with native yeasts and long skin contact in conical vats and Slavonian oak. Three generations now share the cellar: Giorgio and Nicolò, who started bottling in 1985, and Nicolò's sons Matteo and Stefano, who joined the estate in 2009.
Friuli Venezia Giulia
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Private cellar visits and tastings with the Bensa family at the original Località Oslavia tavern site. Booking is direct: phone +39 0481 33670 or email [email protected]. No published price list, no online booking platform.
EnquirePrivate cellar visits and tastings with the Bensa family at the original Località Oslavia tavern site. Booking is direct: phone +39 0481 33670 or email [email protected]. No published price list, no online booking platform.
EnquireLa Castellada takes its name from the hill of Oslavia where Giuseppe Bensa returned in 1954 after years working in Switzerland. The property he bought above Gorizia was a tavern with vines attached, and for three decades the family poured demijohns of their own wine across the counter rather than bottling. The shift came in 1985, when sons Giorgio and Nicolò put the first labelled wines into commercial release. Twenty-four years later, in 2009, Nicolò's sons Matteo and Stefano joined the cellar, leaving the estate fully family-run across three generations.
The Collio side of the Italian border is built on ponca, a stratified Eocene marl and sandstone that locals call flysch. La Castellada's ten hectares of vineyard sit at around 180 metres on these hills, with five hectares of vines aged 45 to 55 years and five hectares planted at higher density roughly twenty-five years ago. Cool air slips down from the Julian Alps and the Adriatic pulls warm currents up the valley, giving Oslavia the long, breezy ripening window that has made it one of the most distinctive sub-zones of Friuli Venezia Giulia.
The Bensas farm with the kind of low-intervention approach that became the Oslavia signature long before "natural wine" was a marketing category. Vine rows are kept fully grassed for biodiversity, pruning is held back to keep yields modest, and the only treatments in the vineyard are copper sulphate and sulphur. Fermentations run on indigenous yeasts in conical vats, with skins kept in contact with the must for varying lengths: roughly four days for the single-variety whites, around two months for the orange-style Bianco della Castellada blend. Wines then age two years in old Slavonian botti, barriques and tonneaux, refine for a year in steel and rest a final year in bottle before release. Nothing is filtered, sulphur use is kept low, and the cellar is intentionally slow.
Beyond their own labels, La Castellada belongs to the Associazione Produttori Ribolla di Oslavia, the small group that pulled Ribolla Gialla out of bulk supply and reframed it as a benchmark macerated white. Alongside Radikon, Gravner, Dario Princic, Il Carpino, Fiegl and Primosic, the Bensas helped argue that this thick-skinned local grape deserved long maceration, large oak and serious bottle age. The result is a portfolio that runs from a fresher Ribolla Gialla Collio DOC and a single-variety Friulano through to the deeply structured Bianco della Castellada and a small parcel of Merlot that is one of the more confident reds on the Oslavia ridge.
The estate is private and the cellar is small, but the family is hospitable and visitors are welcomed by appointment through the Bensas direct line. The address remains the original tavern site at Località Oslavia 1, with the Sacrario Militare war memorial and the Slovenian frontier visible from the vineyard rows. The wine list reads as a study in what Oslavia does best: indigenous and international whites given time on skins, in oak and in glass, and a Merlot grown on marl rather than gravel. For UK drinkers approaching Friuli for the first time, La Castellada is one of the names that explains why the region is taken so seriously by sommeliers in London, New York and Tokyo.
Editorially verified by ItalianWines.co.uk.
Plate I · FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA
Est. 1954 
Tastings
Tours
Accommodation
Booking required 
5
