2022 Meroi Friulano Colli Orientali del Friuli, Friuli, Italy

The Meroi name has echoed through Friuli’s town of Buttrio since the 15th century, but the modern chapter began when Domenico “Dominin” Meroi founded the estate in the early 1900s. Alongside the vineyard, he ran a restaurant in a lush manor house—today's trattoria “Al Parco,” where the village held its carnival festivities and traditional chicken festival. During WWII, German soldiers occupied both the manor and restaurant, demanding provisions, the louts. But Dominin outsmarted them, hiding his best wines behind a false wall in the cellar—a fitting metaphor for how these wines remain hidden from the world today. Four generations later, Paolo Meroi continues this legacy of scarcity and excellence. The estate's crown jewel is the “Zitelle” vineyard (Italian for “spinsters”), acquired from an ancient Order of Unmarried Nuns. Once a clay quarry, this historic site now produces fruit of exceptional character from 40-year-old vines rooted in the famous "Cormòns flysch"—sandstone and marlsto