Product: Clai Ottocento Bijeli
Country: Croatia
Region: Istra
Producer: Clai
Closure: Wine Cork
Alcohol: 14.50%

Manufacture dates on images and products are representative only. All bottles sold at Witrina are updated from the latest safra.

Ottocento Bijeli is the wine that helped bring the skin-contact style to Istria. Giorgio Clai ferments his white grapes on their skins with wild yeasts, adds nothing, ages the wine in wooden barrels of various sizes with a long stay on the lees, and bottles it after nearly two years without fine filtration. The colour is light amber.

Giorgio and Vesna Clai came from Trieste to Krasica, south of Buje, about twenty years ago and built a small estate on the white soil there, ten hectares of vines and five of olives at 200 metres with the sea ten kilometres away. Their model was Joško Gravner across the border in Collio.

Dried flowers and orange peel on the nose, a spicy, mineral palate and a salty finish, in the words of Falstaff, which rated it 91 points. Malvazija leads the blend, with Pinot Gris and Sauvignon.

Serve at cellar temperature, not cold, with roast pork, mushroom dishes, aged cheese or anything with truffles. Decant it if you can.

Giorgio and Vesna Clai moved from Trieste to Krasica, south of Buje in northern Istria, about twenty years ago and built a small estate on the white soil there: ten hectares of vines and five of olives at 200 metres, ten kilometres from the sea. They ferment on the skins with wild yeasts, add nothing, age in wood of various sizes and bottle without fine filtration, and are credited with bringing the skin-contact style to Istria.