($35):  Marjan Simcic, one the region’s top producers, has three tiers of wines made from Rebula (aka Ribolla Gialla).  This one, from a single vineyard with 62-year old vines, is at the pinnacle.  He ferments these white grapes for 16 days with the skins, just as he does for his reds, and then ages the wine in large and small oak barrels for up to two years.  Dark yellow, it remains fresh and vibrant with a lanolin-like texture.  The wood has a gentle effect that magnifies the wine’s power and elegance.  A dense wine, to be sure, it has layers of spice, a lovely firmness and the barest hint of bitterness.  It shows that oak aging and skin-fermentation for white grapes, per se, is not the issue — it’s how those techniques are used that determine the result.  Marjan Simcic uses them well.
94 Michael Apstein Sep 11, 2018