FRIULANOFriulano Colli Orientali del Friuli Doc Traverso

A sought-after denomination

The Friulano, until 12/05/2005 known as "Tocai", is a wine closely connected with Friuli and recognized by its inhabitants as an authentic local tradition. It has ancient and very contrasted origins. For hundreds of years many ampelographers (expert of vine varieties / wines of the territory), then not helped by genetics, have had great difficulty in finding a certain origin, passing from the Hungarian Tokai Furmint, to the various French and German Tokai, up to the Sauvignonasse of Bordeaux. Only for the latter, and recently, there seems to exist a higher affinity, without certainty to which of the two the primogeniture can be reunited (the Sauvignonasse was gradually abandoned by the French to the benefit of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle). So, it is confirmed that it has nothing to do with the Hungarian Tokaji which is based on Furmit vine. Despite this, for an agreement between the European Union and Hungary, the geographical protection of the Tokaji name has been recognized, allowing its use even in case of assonance. This forced the Friulan producers to change the name into simple Friulano, despite the total lack of homogeneity between Hungarian Tokaji and Friulan Tocai. This affair has created considerable commercial damage to the Tocai Friulano which, having changed its name into a simple Friulano, has engendered in customers, especially Italians, the erroneous belief that it had disappeared from the market with consequent serious losses in terms of image and business. We hope that the problem will soon be solved with the introduction of the name "Tocai Friulano" to put back this great wine on the market.