One of my favorite spots in all of Italy, Carso, or Karst, as it’s called on the other side of the Slovenian border a bare kilometer away, is a world onto itself. The easternmost part of Friuli, it’s not exactly Italy, but not Slovenia either. Not only is Carso a small bustling town a short drive from Trieste on the Adriatic coast, Karst is also the technical name of the unique soil series of this very small demarcated area- a distinctive formation of decayed, weepy limestone that is rich in iron giving it a signature red color interspersed with white rocks and a mineral content palpable in all the wines from here. This frontier town is home to an incredible history and some of the most unique characters you’ll ever meet, along with a culture all its own; a sort of rugged individualism in a distinctly Austro-Hungarian vein. Carso is also home to some of the most amazing and distinctive wines in the entire country: This is, after all, the home of people like Josco Gravner, Sandi Skerk, Paolo Vodopivic and the ground-breaking, back-to-the-future ‘orange wine’ movement. Carso is also home to Edi Kante, an iconoclast even in an area full of them. The son of a local farmer, when Edi took over the family business in the late 1980s, he proceeding to dig for himself an incredible cellar that runs some 18 meters under and through the Karst, resembling something in which a villain in a James Bond movie might reside. Once ensconced in his lair, Kante set about creating a legacy of creative, smart winemaking that would expose to the world to the individual characters of the very local grapes that are as quirky and full of personality as Edi himself. Perhaps the best but least-known is the grape called Vitovska. There are something like 120 acres of Vitovska grown in the world- all in Carso. As rugged an individualist as the Carsics themselves, Vitovska, historically, is planted where the hillside vineyards are highest and face the dreaded Bora winds that roar in from the northeast. It has a thick skin, can ripen under even the harshest conditions and always produces a wine of strength, character and age-ability. Kante’s is the benchmark. Edi is, he will be the first to tell you, not a maker of ‘orange,’ or ‘natural’ wines. He ferments his production in his ice cold cellar (he built a special door that opens right to the Bora!) in stainless steel and ages them in old French barriques to preserve the character of the grape and the results are clean, fresh wines that strongly taste of the Karst in which they are grown. Kante’s 2020 Vitovska was on every good wine list in the region when I visited last fall and we found it entrancing to drink all on its own on several occasions: Asian pear with a whiff of orange or mandarin peel, beach scrub, ginger, dried grasses, salty iodine and all that mineral! With its amazing natural acidity, it went beautifully with a local dish of Frico, a gut-busting but delicious layered black hole of potato, apple and the famous Montasio cheese so famous in the region. And with the local seafood from nearby Trieste- a whole stuffed San Pietro, for example, or a grilled octopus in olives- it was just perfect! I think Friuli should be on everyone’s off-the-beaten-path itineraries of Italy and, though most won’t ever make it as far into the wild as Carso, you can always do second best and reach for a bottle of this! Drink now or keep. I stumbled on a bottle the 2008 Vitovska in the cellar last year and it was fabulous.