2025 Ca Modeano Pinot Grigio, Friuli, Italy

White peach and white flower blossom, with a thread of wet-stone minerality running underneath — a signature of the clay-heavy soils this estate farms between Venice and Trieste. On the palate, citrus and orchard fruit carry real intensity, propped up by the kind of acidity that keeps a wine like this from going flabby.

After pressing and a cool, controlled primary fermentation, the wine sits six to seven months in stainless steel on its own lees before release. Most Pinot Grigio at this price point is fermented, filtered, and bottled within weeks — Modeano is giving it nearly two seasons of lees contact, which is where the wine picks up the textural weight and honeyed edge you're tasting alongside the fruit. It's also coming off eight-year-old vines from selected clones, so there's a touch more concentration than you'd expect from a young-vine bottling. This is an estate with Roman-era roots in the village it's named for, revived as a modern winery in the early 1900s and still family-run today