2019 Attems Sauvignon Blanc Venezia Giulia IGT 750 ml

Friuli is a premier region for intricate Sauvignon Blanc, and Attems is one of its most intriguing jewels. Hailing from a centuries-old winemaking land, this historic family tends picturesque geography and unique terroir that turns out sophisticated white wines year after year. Wines that stand up just as well in a philosophy debate as they would on a lake house deck, bottles that boast the crispness and focus you’d expect from a Sauvignon Blanc at twice the price.

Already a respected local estate, Attems needed no help producing stellar wines. But when the award-winning, eminent Frescobaldi family joined the party in 2000, it was an ideal match, a perfect marriage between two seminal pillars of Italian wine.

The Frescobaldis made their name in Tuscany, where their estates have produced instant classics for years, including the legendary Masseto and Wine Spectator’s #1 Wine of the Year Ornellaia. When Gambero Rosso named Frescobaldi their 2020 “Winery of The Year,” they noted the family’s “strategic plans for each individual terroir.” So the partnership with Attems, an intimate operation focused on revering the land and preserving biodiversity, is a natural fit. By developing terroir-specific methods that honor the site’s unique soil and microclimate, these two have consistently produced exemplary Sauvignon Blanc.

You’ve likely seen this kind of name-dropping elsewhere, usually followed by a sizable price. Not here. The 2019 Attems Sauvignon Blanc, which inherits only the best from the Attems terroir and Frescobaldi expertise, is yours for under $20.

In the glass, this latest iteration lives up to the estates’ robust legacies, and then some. Drawing from its sunny, sea-adjacent home, the Attems Sauvignon Blanc is bright and citrusy, rollicking across the palate with the breezy levity of lemon, lime, and minerality. It’s like reading Dostoevsky on the beach: Clean and crisp, but with an air of depth and complexity.

Frescobaldi has an eye for top-quality land and the vision required to unlock its potential. In teaming up with Attems, they’ve acquired a piece of Friuli history, land with a time-honored white wine prowess. The Attems have cherished this travel-magazine-worthy land since 1106. They know what they have is special, and their stunning wines owe much of their nuance and identity to the area’s surrounding biodiversity, which the winery works hard to protect. Combined with the various soils and idyllic weather, this strip of paradise brings forth wines that can easily stand up to Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley or New Zealand.

This land has all the hallmarks of a top-class Sauvignon Blanc site, plus a little something extra. Friuli’s vines, especially on the Attems estate, are nourished by a rare blend of soils and climates. Day in and day out, they’re showered by refracted sunlight off the Adriatic, caressed by chilly northern winds coming off the Alps, and protected by surrounding woods. The soils of Eocene marl and sandstone impart a distinctive sage note to the wine it births. 

It all combines into what makes Friuli one of the world’s most inimitable white wine regions. With a $19.99 price of admission, Attems Sauvignon Blanc is a show worth experiencing again and again.