BENJAMIN ZIDARICH MALVASIA

Following his father, Benjamin began in 1988 with just one hectare and has since grown his holdings to eight hectares, all of which he farms without the use of chemicals. He employs both Guyot and Albarello trellising, severely limiting the number of buds per branch in order to maximize each vine’s intensity of expression. The vines grow in the classic iron- and calcium-rich red soils of the area, extending deep into the limestone that looms just below the surface. Benjamin works primarily with Vitovska, the classic local variety of the Carso, but he also has plantings of Malvasia and Sauvignon—as well as small amounts of Teran (another local variety) and Merlot for his reds. Harvest is done entirely by hand, and Zidarich’s modest yields typically hover around 30 hectoliters per hectare.

In the cellar, Benjamin uses an old basket press, and—like others in the region that have re-embraced ancient, more natural methods—he keeps his white wines in contact with their skins for a few weeks during fermentation (which always occurs spontaneously). However, in comparison to the bold, unabashedly tannic, deeply copper-colored wines of someone like Gravner, the skin-contact influence in Zidarich’s wines is remarkably subtle—their color remains relatively brilliant and vibrant, and the gentle tannins weave so tightly and seamlessly around the wines’ pungent, clinging minerality as to be almost undetectable. These are first and foremost wines of minerality, not wines of skin tannins. Aging takes place in Slavonian barrels of varying sizes, and the employment of skin contact allows Benjamin to use the barest minimum of added sulfur. The wines are bottled without fining or filtration, typically two years after the vintage, and allowed to rest for a spell before being put up for sale.

Running through all of Zidarich’s wines is a driving, dancing, powerful yet balletic minerality—an essence of pure stone. Even in those wines made from more assertive and aromatic varieties like Malvasia and Sauvignon, it is the limestone that takes center stage. They combine invigorating liveliness and profound, contemplative mineral heft like few other wines on Earth, capturing both the gleaming sunshine of his high-altitude vineyards and the cool depth of his cellar. Benjamin is quick to open older bottles—a testament to his confidence as well as his generosity—and it is frankly astonishing to see how well his wines develop with age. We invite you to take this dive into the Carso with us, and we hope that you will get on board with the minute quantities of the wines below, as they are truly among the most exciting testaments of terroir we have encountered in quite some time.

Wine Notes: The Malvasia is the more gregarious, talkative, eager younger brother to the more inward and contemplative Vitovska, yet both express the powerfully stony essence of the Carso in their own delicious way. The 2014 presents notes of crunchy mango, white pepper, and lemon verbena, with a subtle honey undertone emerging on the driving, mineral-drenched finish. A 2006 version of this wine offered amazing depth and freshness, proving that its relative youthful exuberance does not preclude an equally impressive age-ability.

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