GRAVNER
"When the time of steel came he was the best, when barriques triumphed he was the best, and now, with the "return" of amphorae, he is no longer the best, he is simply unique. His wine is unique like Kant's thought, like Beethoven's Ninth, like Leonardo's Mona Lisa" Slowine Guide 2020
Josko Gravner is without a doubt one of those characters who made the history of Italian wine. There is a way of thinking about wine before Gravner and an after Gravner, just like the birth of Christ.
He began his career young in the family vineyards and continued to keep up with the times: new methodologies, new technologies, the use of steel, barriques and international vines.
A trip to California in the late 80s was revealing. An avant-garde area for its time where the use of fertilizers, manures, technologies and additives in the cellar were the basis of wine production. A series of tastings made something click, those wines produced on the other side of the world were exactly like the wines produced in Italy and by Josko Gravner himself; it was clear that something was wrong...it couldn't go.
Gravner returns to Italy with a new awareness: respecting the territory to enhance the characteristics that make it unique in wine production . He begins to study and understands how his vision of the future is exactly in the gestures and methodologies of the past . He experiments with long macerations and fermentations in amphorae. Georgian amphorae buried up to the neck. He becomes the Gravner that most of us know... 
An experimentation that continues incessantly with extreme and radical decisions such as the uprooting of all international vineyards, both white and red.
The Breg Bianco ( Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Riesling Italico) is no longer produced, to the disappointment of many enthusiasts who were struck by this blend.
The uprooting of the vines has left room for Ribolla but also for the creation of uncultivated green spaces between the vines: ponds, different tree crops, meadows have been created so as to bring biodiversity and balance back into the environment; this is also his vision of cultivating the land. 
Today the only two active vines are the much-loved Ribolla Gialla and Pignolo, which appear to us after 7 years. This is the cycle that Gravner respects: “ the biological cycle of man must be respected, it occurs with cycles of 7 years each. This is the aging time of my white wines, 1 in amphora and 6 in large barrels. The reds are not suitable for such long aging ,” he says.
Josko Gravner is one of the few winemakers in the world who is not in a hurry to present his wine to the world, because he says: “ I produce the wine for myself, I sell the rest ”.
Always remember that “ Three things are needed to make wine: earth, glass, and wood. The amphora is buried as the ancient Caucasians did because it is like a womb. The amphora allows you not to control the sugar level, not to make additions, because if you do not subtract or add you have nothing to control. The only addition I allow myself is a very small amount of sulfur at the end of the process, because without that the wine becomes vinegar. I produced the worst wines many years ago without adding sulfur, believing that it was the absolute evil” .
A statement that still goes against the grain of natural wine purists where sulphites are seen as poison in the bottle. However, it is difficult to say that Josko Gravner is not a winemaker who is attentive to the production of natural wines.
His wines are unique, unlike anything else you can try in the world.
They tell a story, a beautiful story.
Ribolla is always majestic and will be for many years to come, its amber reflections and hints of aromatic and wild herbs, fruit and balsamic scents inebriate... The Reserves? Only when conditions allow it because there the biological cycle multiplies by two, Seven years plus another Seven... everything that is the "classic" Ribolla is amplified to the nth degree. 
