Vie di Romans Pinot Grigio 2023

Gianfranco Gallo has one of the better backstories in Italian wine.

The Friulian winemaker once found himself accosted by well-dressed men with bulging briefcases and a lawsuit from the American Gallo brothers — one in every three bottles of wine consumed in America bearing their name. Having experienced a taste of American hospitality, Gianfranco renamed his estate “Vie di Romans,” honoring the ancient Roman road that passes through his corner of Friuli, and put a white chicken — gallo in Italian — on his label, where it has been cheekily crowing ever since.

Gianfranco’s Ciampagnis Vieris Chardonnay is, in my estimation, one of the handful of white wines in the world that belongs in the same conversation as Le Montrachet. Legendary stuff, and an allocation we only see about once every seven years.

But the Romato is something different. Something that can permanently change how you think about a grape you probably think you already understand.

Pinot Grigio.

Here is what most producers don’t emphasize about Pinot Grigio: it isn’t actually a white grape. The name itself is the clue — grigio means grey. Genetically, Pinot Grigio sits almost exactly halfway between its parent, Pinot Noir — a red grape — and a true white wine grape. It never quite completes the journey. At véraison, when the grapes begin to ripen, the berries start turning toward red, toward the color of their Pinot Noir parent, but they never quite get there. They stop somewhere in between — grey, copper, pink, depending on how ripe they get and how long the skins remain in contact with the juice.

And this is where most Pinot Grigio producers make their fatal mistake.

They panic. They pick early, before the skins develop any pigment or character. The result is a wine stripped of everything interesting about the grape — the texture, the tannin, the copper glow, the connection to Pinot Noir — leaving behind something pale, thin and frankly, boring. This is why Pinot Grigio has a bad name among serious wine drinkers. Not because the grape is bad. Because most producers are afraid of it.

Gianfranco Gallo is not afraid of it.

The Romato — from the Italian word for that distinctive copper-red hue — is Vie di Romans’ answer to the question of what Pinot Grigio can be. Rather than fighting the grape’s natural tendencies, Gianfranco leans into them entirely, allowing the skins to add color, texture, structure and a complexity that most Pinot Grigio drinkers have never encountered in this grape.

The result is extraordinary.

A deep copper-rose, almost like a serious rosé but with more weight and authority. The nose opens with dried apricots, crushed violets, peach tea, white pepper and a mineral edge rooted in Friuli’s ancient alluvial soils — the same shallow, gravelly, iron-rich ground the Romans identified two thousand years ago as one of the world’s ideal sites for white wine. On the palate it’s full-bodied, creamy and enveloping, with real tannins — yes, tannins, in a Pinot Grigio — giving the wine a structure and length that will genuinely surprise you. Red berries, stone fruit, a saline mineral finish, and a complexity that keeps building the longer the wine is open.

This is, in a word, magnificent. A vin de soif — a wine of thirst, as the French say — where the first sip immediately calls for the next one, and before you know it you’re wondering whether one bottle was enough.

For anyone who has ever dismissed Pinot Grigio as thin and forgettable, this is the counterargument. And for anyone who already loves Vie di Romans, this is Gianfranco showing another side of the white chicken.