Refosco

Refosco is a family of related varieties from north-east Italy and the Slovenian border country, and the one normally meant is Refosco dal Peduncolo Rosso — red-stalked Refosco, named for the colour of the stem that holds the bunch.

It makes a deeply coloured, firmly structured red with blackberry, damson and sour cherry, high acidity, substantial tannin and a distinctive bitter, almost herbaceous finish that is the family signature. There is often a note of dried herbs, violet and a faintly ferrous, iron-like quality.

It ripens late and needs a warm site; on cooler ground it stays green and hard. The best examples come from the Colli Orientali del Friuli, where marl and sandstone soils and a long autumn give it time to finish.

On the Karst plateau, in Slovenia and across the Italian border, a related variety is made into Teran on the iron-rich red terra rossa soil. Teran is a legally protected Slovenian designation, and there has been a long-running and occasionally heated dispute with Croatia over the right to use the name.

Refosco ages reasonably well and softens considerably after five years, though it rarely loses the bitter edge entirely — which, as with Dolcetto and Vermentino, local drinkers regard as the point rather than the problem.

It is a food wine in the most literal sense, made to cut through the pork-heavy, salty cooking of Friuli.