This variety, brought to Friuli by the French Count Theodore De La Tour in 1869, quickly became the region’s most popular red. In the local inns if one asks for a glass of white wine, a Friuliano is automatically served, if it is a red it must be Merlot. Most of the vineyards on the estate are possibly too cool for the variety to reach optimum ripeness and complexity, but our “Perilla” Merlot DOC Collio comes from a selection of the very best sites (as can be seen in the photos on crop thinning).