It was a rainy summer’s day, many years ago. In the vineyards he grapes were just beginning to change color. Suddenly the hail arrived. I rushed outside. Dense sheets of hailstones, like tiny needles of ice were sweeping across the hillside. I stood and cursed the weather and the lot of the “cotandino”. Uncle Franc came up quietly behind me and said softly, “Josko, mother nature gives us everything we have. It’s only right that now and then she takes something back.” That day I understood. For me it was the beginning. -Josko Gravner
We recently had the opportunity to visit with the compelling figure of Josko Gravner. To capture in words the essence of this individual, farmer, winemaker, philosopher, artist whose honesty, passion, and commitment has inspired a movement is challenging. Josko’s colleague Filippo Polidori has done so with such eloquence that we prefer to to share it.
Once upon a time there was a child that dreamt of being a farmer. His superheroes were Father Jozef and his Uncle Franc….this could very easily be the beginning of this Man’s story…Josko Gravner.
Josko Gravner is one of the most emblematic and talked-about men in oenology. By many he is seen as a madman, a visionary, and by others as a genius, an artist. By the same token his wines are either loved or loathed.
It would be nice to be able to tell you about Gravner’s world, his philosophy, his approach to life/lives/wine but I would need a book to include everything, without mentioning the skill to write it which I definitely don’t have.
People who have never met Josko in person or who have never had the pleasure of hearing him speak might think that behind the Gravner phenomenon there is a complex marketing and communication strategy..but believe me, everything which has been said is true and I would even add that his real life is even more fascinating than that which myself and others try to portray. Surely, the only way to understand the more intimate and personal aspects of his life is through his Wine.
Josko was born with a great love for the Earth and this might seem banal for the son of farmers, “real” farmers, but this is not always the case. Progress has transformed, and in some cases substituted, farmers with agricultural entrepreneurs.
His father, Jozef, taught him to respect the Earth and to work honestly without ever compromising his beliefs and values. When, as a child, Josko would come back home from school he couldn’t wait to run to the vineyards to spy on his father, to try and understand every single movement of him. At the age of 14 his dream came true and he began working in the family business. It would take him 43 years of experience to reach his current way of making Wine. 43 years! And this is something many people forget. In Josko’s way of working there is no improvisation; time is his strength and the ability to know how to wait, to listen only and always to his instinct and his heart.
43 years of first-hand experience, not passed on from other generations.
43 years of great successes.
43 years of changes, every time he tried a new path, constantly putting himself to the test.
1966 he started working in the father’s wine cellar with large barrels.
1973 he did away with the large barrels and began working with steel.
1980 he did away with steel and began working with barriques/tubs.
1997 he did away with the barriques and went back to large barrels/tubs.
2000 after years of experimenting with amphorae he began working with them and large barrels.
Josko always put his heart into everything; even if the market praised his traditional wines, he would always admit his mistakes, and he would try and explain the limits of this kind of wine making which he abandoned despite his success.
But this is Josko: someone who does not follow trends and is not interested in the market…once again the story repeats itself, from Oslavia with only 35,000 bottles he paved the way for a new way of making wine which many are already following today….
Wine making in amphorae is a difficult path. In a test conducted with 10 people whom we asked to taste the wines, eight of them refused them, whilst two were enthralled by them and instantly adored them. Yet it is thanks to this small percentage of people that the Gravner myth has been able to change the traditional concept of white wine, once again without improvising.
In light of this a journalist wrote: “You will hear many things about Gravner wines. He changed style many times and many people did not understand this. Just like Pablo Picasso was not understood; he could paint like Raffaello and for certain periods of his life he did, but then he invented cubism and he painted Les demoiselles d’Avignon. Josko’s Ribolla….is a work of art in every sense of the word. This led to a new way of conceiving and making wine….”
Today we are used to selling or buying Wines or anything else through the support of an appropriate communication or marketing strategy…and this is necessary for everyone. However, Josko’s Wines cannot only be communicated because the most important thing is that they must be tasted. This is what I have been trying to do for years and in these very complex years what makes me happy is that in the midst of so many people there will always be two people who will allow us to continue making our Wines….Josko’s Wines.
