It’s a rare occasion indeed when I can send out an offer on Edi Keber’s totally unique Friulian white. There is very little made, and with the cult-like following this one-wine, two-man cantina has throughout Europe, it’s sort of a miracle we get any at all. The Kebers have been making wines in this rugged frontier land between Italy and Slovenia since 1957, back when growing grapes and making wine here often involved crossing the back and forth through the Iron Curtain several times a day. Edi doesn’t have to worry about border patrols anymore, and now has the welcome assistance of his son Kristian to keep things running. That hasn’t changed anything, though. Keber still stubbornly persists in making his wine his way. He makes a single wine- not a passel- and works exclusively with the indigenous grapes he grows in his vineyards near Cormons. He harvests later than his neighbors to achieve the maximum possible maturity in his grapes and ferments and ages them in the same old cement vats he installed when he first built the winery. ‘They add soul to the wine,’ he says, and he’s not interested in stainless steel tanks or buying any fancy new oak barrels. The Kebers’ one wine; a white they create from a combination of the triumvirate of Collio’s best local grapes. The workhorse Friulano provides the base- lots of richness and a firm tannic spine. An old patch of Malvasia Istriana brings the intense aromatics to the blend- a meadow’s worth of wild herbs, wintergreen and spicy mineral. And Ribolla Gialla acts as the squeeze of lemon- the bright acidity that brings everything together. Though we can only rarely get it, the Keber Collio Bianco is truly is one of the coolest wines we sell. The aromatics are totally unique- a sort of wild garrigue-like complex of green and dried herbs with pronounced mint and wet slate-y petrichor too. On the palate, the wine is really rich- almost oily, like something from Alsace, but with amazing acidity- that tincture of lemongrass running along that aforementioned spine. Yum! Deep, eminently age-worthy, savory and delicious, this is a dynamic combination with all sorts of dishes. In Collio, you’d find it with the fried Montasio cheese dish called frico or any of the local lake and river fish and eels so common up there, but it’s certainly rich enough for sausages, peppers and lentils, grilled pork chops or just about anything else where an assertive Sauvignon or Rhone white might serve. Rare, unique, really fun to drink and highly recommended!
