Pinot Bianco Toros, a Collio gem

The small estate of Franco Toros is in Novali, in one of the magical areas of Collio, east of Cormòns and very close to the border with Slovenia.

The family of Franco Toros has been present in the area since 1648 but the name reveals the family’s distant reek origin. The estate is rather small, with Guyot-trained vines planted in elegant rolling hills, a total of 12 hectares spread out around the estate headquarters. The vineyards are grassy and have never been irrigated.

Collio is the product of a warm Mediterranean climate, with the Adriatic only a few kilometers away, and a soil, typical for the area and called ponca, which is a mixture of sandstone and marl of marine origin. This explains the full and wrapping body and the intense yet never sharp aromas of the wines from this area.

For the most part associated with Friulano, the varietal once known as Tocai, Collio can also produce, as do Colli Orientali and Alto Adige, some of the Italy’s best Pinot Bianco wines. These are wines that not only maintain the elegance and wonderful white fruit notes of the varietal, but also add a remarkable body without losing drinkability. They have, in a way, fit a round peg in a square hole and created a wine that is for the moment a tiny gem for the area, given that the vineyards cultivating the varietal are only 4% of the total.

At the Toros winery, Pinot Bianco has found an exceptional interpreter, one who not only brings out the best from the grape and terroir but also produces a wine that stands the test of time and even acquires nuances and depth from aging.

Franco is a jack-of-all-trades, he personally oversees the vineyards and the winery and he learned a lot from Josko Gravner, lamenting that the latter no longer makes Chardonnay and Sauvignon.

He is helped at the estate by his two daughters.

DoctorWine: Do you have a favorite among the wines you make?

Franco Toros: Not really, even if I like Chardonnay a lot.

DW: What goes on in the winery?

FT: After we hand pick the grapes, when they are nice and ripe, I ferment the wine in the classic way without pre-fermentation maceration but with soft pressing and cold settling.

DW: In this area, the more important white wines often mature in small barrels.

FT: My wines matures exclusively in stainless steel with only a small part fermenting and maturing in new barriques.  After the first decanting I blend the wine and then do no more decanting in order not to strain the wine and I don’t use much sulfur dioxide.

DW: How are sales?

FT: Good, fortunately. Aside from locally, we sell well in Slovenia, Austria and Germany.

All the following wines are 100% Pinot Bianco with 90% maturing in stainless steel and the rest fermenting and maturing in new barriques.

Collio Pinot Bianco 2018 

96/100 - € 22

A straw-yellow color with green and golden hues. The bouquet is of renetta apple, bread crust, yeast and wisteria. The complex and fat mouthfeel is fresh at first but then evolves with great precision and has an excellent balance, above all between the notes of yeast and apple, becoming persistent while remaining intact.

Collio Pinot Bianco 2013

95/100 - € 22

The color is very fresh and vital, the aroma opens with light notes of ash, dried almond and apple seed but after a few minutes the fruit takes command with a clear scent of golden delicious apple and a light balsamic hint. The wrapping mouthfeel is typical of the great Collio wines with an exquisite flavor of white fruit and sweet yellow fruit, while the finish is full and saline with notes of apple and ash. A magnificent wine!

Collio Pinot Bianco 2012

93/100 - € 22

A pronounced and lively golden color, only slightly evolved from the 2013, with a clear aroma of cream, golden delicious apple and chloroform. The mouthfeel is literally overflowing with fruit with a wrapping body and exquisite flavor. The wine is even fruitier but less soft than the 2013. A wine to drink by the bucket, as Daniele Cernilli would say.

Collio Pinot Bianco 2006

98/100 - € 22

When one thinks of the great Collio white wines they do not automatically consider their propensity to age and it was for this reason that I was totally bowled over by this masterpiece. A golden, straw-yellow color with an aroma that ranged from flint to white rose, from river stone to golden delicious apple. The mouthfeel was even better with a wrapping and fruity body intertwined with notes of incense and ash with a full, substantial yet also symphonic finish.

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