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Friuli, in the far northeast of Italy, has a justified rep for making the country's best white wines. "The key to this region is the difference in diurnal temperature," Justin Bubb explains. "In the growing season, the days are very warm, but the nights are freezing. This allows nice, long ripening and wonderful aromatics for the white wines." So it's good news that Babo's Pinot Grigio is sourced from this region, specifically from two sites in San Martino al Tagliamento, near Pordenone. The vineyards are over 30 years old and sit at the base of the Alps. The soils are a mix of clay and alpine gravel from alluvial deposits. Judicious cropping (9 tonnes per hectare) in a marginal climate allows optimum ripeness to be achieved.
The 2025 growing season had a wet spring, followed by a hot, relatively dry early summer. Budburst came around 4-5 days earlier than normal, with good early vegetative development. June brought intense heat and limited rainfall, while July turned cooler and wetter, helping replenish soil moisture. Heat returned in August, with warm conditions accelerating ripening, balanced by regular rainfall and useful day-night temperature variation. Harvest began a week earlier than average, in the second half of August. We are delighted with this vintage's balance of bright acidity, weight and texture.
Pinot Grigio from Friuli generally has more fleshy layers than, say, those from Veneto and Trentino. Justin underscores this with 6 hours of skin contact: the fruit is crushed to press and soaks there without draining. The juice is then pressed out, settles naturally for 48 hours and is racked to ferment. Fermentation is in steel tanks, and the wine remains on lees for five months before bottling. A far cry from the one-dimensional wines that crowd the market, it's crisp, fresh, compact and bright, awash with pithy citrus flavours, lovely texture and a mouth-watering, tangy close. It's a quality example of Italian Grigio at a heck of a price.