The April 2026 issue of MangiaVino (#32) dives deep into the wine and food culture of Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy’s dynamic wine region. This edition spotlights Silvio Jermann’s bold new venture in Slovenia’s Collio, where he embraces long macerations, amphora fermentation, and indigenous grapes like Ribolla Gialla.<br>A highlight is the vertical tasting of Damijan Podversic’s Ribolla Gialla (2000–2023), showcasing the evolution of this iconic wine. The issue also explores wine labels as storytelling tools, featuring Livio Felluga’s legendary geographic map design, and debates contemporary challenges, including the rise of dealcoholized wines.<br>Additional features include Belgian high-fermentation beers, organic flours from Carnia, and gourmet itineraries along the Tagliamento River. A must-read for wine lovers, professionals, and travelers seeking the soul of Friuli’s wines.<br>

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THE SECOND ACT OF JERMANN

all round

IT’S NOT JUST A MATTER OF LABEL

the vertical

DAMIJAN THE MAN OF MONTE CALVARIO

INFORMATION PROMOTIONAL

Along our river a journey through the flavors of the Tagliamento and the Pordenone area

From the “Via Alta” to the future: The sustainable elegance of Vie d’Alt

Baroni del Mestri an oasis of taste telling the story of Mount Quarin

feature THE SECOND ACT OF JERMANN by Francesco Antonini In the Slovenian Brda region, the latest venture from the founder of Vintage Tunina: just a few hectares, minimal intervention in the cellar, Rebula macerated on the skins, terracotta amphorae and screw caps. And this isn't a step backwards, but a warm embrace of his family history The wind blows in from the Vipava Valley and the climate changes suddenly: cooler, crisper, as if nature had decided to turn a page in its book with a snap. You round a bend and the landscape shifts: the soil becomes lighter, harder, almost chalky. 'Here the soil changes. There's no more ponca here,' he says, pointing to the ground. It is one of those details that may seem trivial to those who are not winemakers, but which for Silvio Jermann marks a precise boundary. Not political, but agricultural. Not visible on maps, but decisive in the glass. We are in the Slovenian Collio, just beyond that line which for decades was a scar and not merely a border between two states, now reduced to a road sign or little more. From here, at 471 metres above sea level, the highest point in Brda, on clear days like today you can see everything: the Friuli plain, the Karst, the Gulf of Trieste with the tip of Istria. Meanwhile, the workers on the bulldozers are busy preparing the vineyard that Jermann cherishes most: "Having brought the vines back to where the ponca ends, right up to the road leading to the Isonzo valley, fills me with satisfaction". A brief background All right, it sounds a bit trite to put it this way, and perhaps it shouldn't be said. But the man who explains every contour of the land to us with such infectious passion, who tells us that "before tasting, one should always go and see the vineyards", is a living legend in the world of wine. This brief summary of previous episodes should suffice: Silvio Jermann was born in Villanova di Farra d'Isonzo into a family of farmers. Which means peasants, which means poor. "At home, we could never spend money. We were afraid of everything," he recently recalled in Wine Report magazine. His father Angelo tried to steer him in other directions, but it was no use: he had already fallen in love with wine, studied oenology in San Michele all'Adige and set to work on the family estate. There, he immediately had the right intuition: to move beyond the classic Tocai and ready-to-drink wines, and focus on a long-lived white capable of speaking differently to international markets: in a nutshell, Vintage Tunina, a label that has become legendary.

Explore Silvio Jermann’s new project, a Ribolla Gialla vertical tasting, and the wines of Friuli Venezia Giulia in MangiaVino’s latest issue.