MEROI, Buttrio

During our tasting with Paolo and Damiano Meroi we were joined by Japanese importers, spurred on to visit the region due to an increasing demand from their clientele for quality Italian wine. And for excellence in quality from the Friuli region, Meroi is a damn good place to start.

Having hired a new Oenologist – Mirko – in 2009, father and son team Paolo and Damiano Meroi have seen a decent rise in performance for their last three vintages. The Meroi estate was founded over 100 years ago alongside a trattoria, which still exists today – albeit as a fine dining establishment, the most popular for many miles around. Surprisingly, the Germans decided to occupy this rather small estate as their regional headquarters during the second World War. Unsurprisingly, they depleted the cellars of the wine which historically had only been produced for clients of the trattoria. Paolo inherited the estate from his father Domenico and in the late 1980’s he started commercial production.

There is currently 15ha in production with 6ha planted 5 years ago, almost ready to come on stream. An additional 12ha has been recently purchased with 5 of these having previously been rented. We will soon start to see an increase in production, for which Decvin will be grateful, particularly as it look like our allocations will be reduced by this estate’s popularity with new markets.