2022 di Lenardo Chardonnay Monovitigno Venezia Giulia 750 ml

A bombshell from the northern province once pronounced “the best Italian wine region you’ve never heard of,” the 2020 Di Lenardo Monovitigno will explode your notion of what Italian Chardonnay can be. A gorgeous, gold-tinged expression of one rare clone, it’s got zesty flavor, crisp acidity, and a lovely green-apple bite that lingers over a long finish. 

Ensconced in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region that Jancis Robinson said is “worshipped by many Italian wine lovers,” the family behind Di Lenardo has deep roots. They’ve been cultivating grapes there since the 1800s. The vineyards are estate-owned, spread across five plots.

This area is the source of Italy’s finest white wines—yet many buyers would struggle to find it on a map. East of Venice, centered right between Austrian Alps on the north and the Adriatic Sea to the south, and bordering Austria and Slovenia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia produces pure, luminous whites that show a singular complexity born of ocean and mountain, salt and stone. “Italian connoisseurs have been prepared to pay well over the odds for them,” said Robinson.

Winemaker and owner Massimo de Lenardo emphasizes elegant fruit, crisp acidity, and varietal integrity with this bottling. It is the only wine in Friuli made entirely with the musqué clone of Chardonnay, a biotype that imbues the nose with gorgeous, heady white-floral aromatics.

Fermented in stainless-steel tanks, the wine matures on fine lees for three months and undergoes regular batonnage, which adds a supple texture that balances the grapes’ natural vibrancy. It all adds up to a bottling that tastes like it should cost WAY more than it does.