The Story
The one wine in Paolo’s cellar that doesn’t spend time in amphorae, “Origine” is fermented in open-top wooden casks, and spends three years in large Slavonian botti before bottling. What it perhaps lacks in textural je ne sais quoi compared to its terra-cotta-aged brethren it makes up for in a stricter, more vividly limestone-driven mineral character—almost a Chablis-like saltiness and snap. There is an arresting purity here, reminiscent of pure mountain water, and the very long finish recedes slowly and elegantly, framed by a note of dried honey and a persistent whisper of chalk.
Each bottle of Paolo Vodopivec's wines solidifies something intangible: there is nothing on earth quite like these. These wines seem to operate on their own existential plane. Paolo strives to efface the grower's ego and render wines that are faithful translations of Karst earth. It's not as if Paolo is new to the scene. His father worked the same brutal, wind-battered terrain in the Carso, and Paolo achieved early notoriety for making heavily macerated wines long before skin contact became the phenomenon it is today.
Vitovska's capacity for mineral expression can be obscured through an abundance of tannin, and the newfound gentleness in his wines allows them to speak with shocking clarity. Yes, all the wines are skin-macerated, but these are adamantly not "orange wines." Paolo employs skin contact because it best expresses the limestone into which his Vitvoska plumbs, and because it better allows him to work without the manipulations of temperature control, outside yeasts, sulfur, and filtration, which to him are anathema. Vodopivec has also embraced, with total confidence, the buried amphora as an ideal vessel for fermenting his cherished Vitovska.
Description
The one wine in Paolo’s cellar that doesn’t spend time in amphorae, “Origine” is fermented in open-top wooden casks, and spends three years in large Slavonian botti before bottling. What it perhaps lacks in textural je ne sais quoi compared to its terra-cotta-aged brethren it makes up for in a stricter, more vividly limestone-driven mineral character—almost a Chablis-like saltiness and snap. There is an arresting purity here, reminiscent of pure mountain water, and the very long finish recedes slowly and elegantly, framed by a note of dried honey and a persistent whisper of chalk.
Each bottle of Paolo Vodopivec's wines solidifies something intangible: there is nothing on earth quite like these. These wines seem to operate on their own existential plane. Paolo strives to efface the grower's ego and render wines that are faithful translations of Karst earth. It's not as if Paolo is new to the scene. His father worked the same brutal, wind-battered terrain in the Carso, and Paolo achieved early notoriety for making heavily macerated wines long before skin contact became the phenomenon it is today.
Vitovska's capacity for mineral expression can be obscured through an abundance of tannin, and the newfound gentleness in his wines allows them to speak with shocking clarity. Yes, all the wines are skin-macerated, but these are adamantly not "orange wines." Paolo employs skin contact because it best expresses the limestone into which his Vitvoska plumbs, and because it better allows him to work without the manipulations of temperature control, outside yeasts, sulfur, and filtration, which to him are anathema. Vodopivec has also embraced, with total confidence, the buried amphora as an ideal vessel for fermenting his cherished Vitovska.
