Borgo del Tiglio Milleuve Bianco 2023

The Land

Fifty million years ago these hills were the floor of a shallow marine lagoon. What settled there hardened into the Cormons flysch: alternating bands of soft marl and hard sandstone, laid down in layers ranging from a few inches to more than a foot thick. Locals call the rock ponca, and the alternation is the whole point. Because soft and hard strata sit against each other rather than in a uniform mass, small amounts of water seep through the seams and stay within reach of vine roots through a dry summer, which is why Collio whites keep their freshness in drought years instead of shutting down. Milleuve draws from every one of the estate's holdings, so it reads as a portrait of the formation rather than of a single slope.

The Wine

Milleuve was never conceived as a product. Manferrari ferments every vineyard lot separately, then selects the barrels that will become the single-site wines. What cannot practically be kept separate, plus everything left over after that selection, becomes Milleuve. He is blunt that the wine loses the link to a specific vineyard that defines the rest of the range, and equally blunt that the upside is its relatively very low cost. The grapes are the same grapes. The methods are the same methods: low yields, thorough selection in the field, harvest into loosely packed small crates so nothing crushes in transit, soft pressing, fermentation in small wooden barrels. The blend runs across the estate's white plantings, Friulano leading, with Malvasia, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling behind it. Straw yellow with gold at the rim. Citrus peel, white flowers, wet stone. Brisk and linear, with more grip through the finish than the price would predict.

The People

The Brazzano property has belonged to the Manferrari family for four generations and has grown grapes since the 1700s; the offices and cellar still occupy a small building in the old hamlet there. Nicola's father, Giuseppe, bought the adjoining plot at the end of the 1960s, the same decade Collio was formalized as an appellation, with DOC status following in 1968. Nicola inherited the smaller half of that in 1981 and spent the next decade expanding, adding Ca' delle Vallade between 1987 and 1989 and Ruttars in 1989, bringing the estate to roughly nine hectares across three sites. Farming is deliberately low input: grass kept across the rows, no fertilizers, yields held down by precise pruning. Anything that does not make even the Milleuve cut is sold off in bulk rather than bottled under the name, which tells you where the line sits.

Food Pairing

This is the estate's weeknight wine and deserves to be treated as one. Roast a chicken with lemon halves and rosemary pushed under the skin; the acid cuts the rendered fat and the citrus lines up with the pan juices. A bowl of clams steamed with white wine, garlic, and parsley works on salinity alone. Or skip cooking entirely: prosciutto San Daniele, cured an hour from these vineyards, and good bread. Milleuve is proof that a serious address can still be worth opening on a Tuesday.