Picech Wines, a Family Affair

Updated April 15, 2026.

The day is one of those rainy spring days. Not the kind of weather that most rewards a visit to the Collio, but the motivation is sound: a stop at Picech. So we reach the hamlet of Pradis, the same place as other well-known names for those familiar with the area: Sandro (Doro) Princic, Caccese and Carlo di Pradis. Not just any spot.

Waiting for us is Mrs Alessia, wife of Roberto Picech, owner of the estate. I have noticed that there are two kinds of partners (or companions, or wives or – more rarely, it must be said – husbands) in wineries: those who are involved and those who stay on the sidelines of production. In this case we are lucky: besides running the rooms rented to tourists, Alessia knows her husband’s wines and comments on them competently. Hurray.

The Origins of the Picech Estate

We taste a few glasses in a room with a spectacular view of the vineyards. I know the Collio fairly well, but I have rarely tasted wines with a panorama like this. We start with the 2023 Pinot Bianco, which, compared with the 2022 (which I found rich and fruity), seems even more successful to me.

This vintage has all the succulence typical of Picech wines, enriched by elegant aromas of lemon pith. It is deep, with medium-high acidity. The alcoholic note is slightly marked, but the body is taut and well-defined. A truly fine wine.

Alessia has a special bond with Pinot Bianco, a variety introduced from France by Count De La Tour for Villa Russiz. From there it spread, becoming a small classic, supported by a tight-knit consortium that also includes Franco Toros and Castello di Spessa. But in 1868, in the Count’s time, the Picech family were not yet independent producers.

The family started tending vines at the beginning of the 1900s, as sharecroppers. Mid-century, the landowner lost everything and was forced to sell. Thus, in 1963, the Picech family bought the house and 5 hectares, beginning their own production. It is a story set between the dawn of modern Collio viticulture and the rise of the area led by Felluga, Schiopetto and the other patriarchs of Friulian oenology.

The First Generation

The second wine is Jelka 2019, a blend of Friulano, Malvasia and Ribolla. It is not the classic “Collio Bianco,” a category I do not love. Instead, this is a skin-contact wine: the Friulano, harvested late, remains on the skins for fifteen days. The varieties then mature separately – large cask and tonneaux for a year – followed by three years in concrete and one in bottle. A wine born of a careful process.

I have a 2017 bottle at home that I have not yet opened, so I was curious to try it. I found it round and harmonious. Alessia describes it well: on the nose it recalls a sweet wine (notes of honey and candied peel), but on the palate it is dry, clean and direct. Not a very intense body, but I am curious to follow its evolution. Truly remarkable.

Jelka is an important name in a company story that is also a family story. She is Roberto Picech’s mother, wife of that Ribel (a nickname that, Mrs Alessia says, fits) whose complex nature is behind the company logo: a hedgehog. And if it is true that behind (but we hope also in front of) every great man there is a great woman, those behind difficult men must work twice as hard. Jelka, born in Medana (in the Slovenian Collio) and ethnically Slovenian in a period when Fascism liked to change names and clip identities, succeeded, holding together family and a bond with her own history that the Picechs carry forward.

The son’s homage is a wine, but also an oenological statement of intent: Collio but unconventional, macerated but not extreme, soft but not ingratiating. In wine as in life, it is often in the nuances that the best things are found.

Picech Today

We finish the tasting with an unplanned surprise: Ruben Riserva 2020. An almost-all-Merlot blend with a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon, produced only in the best vintages. Aged in tonneaux for 24 months, then in large cask.

Wow. A nose that is very deep and serious, humid, that reminded me of Saffredi. Powerful, powdery – very powdery – tannins around the mouth. Finish with notes of cigar box and chocolate. Readable, yet never to be underestimated. Truly exceptional.

Ruben is also the name of Roberto and Alessia’s son. Athena, their daughter, lent her name to a macerated Friulano that I did not taste, but knowing its merit, I bought it sight unseen. Here the estate’s past merges with a perspective on the future.

The philosophy and the wines are modern in substance, not in fashion. The estate has always been organic: only copper-sulfate spray. I also learned a new term: “sovescio,” green-manure plants sown to enrich the soil naturally. It is a small winery that never replicates the same wine but interprets the vintage.

And this is also the point where the future becomes daunting. Summers are getting ever hotter and hailstorms abound. When you speak with farmers and producers, climate change stops being an opinion: these temperatures and rains are not within the norm of past decades. Last year the Picechs, because of two hailstorms, lost two-thirds of their production (and no, Mrs Alessia explains, there is no insurance that truly covers such events).

There is therefore a future to be written that contains question marks. For my part, I arrived at Picech knowing and loving their wines. But there is an additional element: you do not fully understand this winery’s wines if you do not know the great family novel that connects them to their land.

The pleasure of making one’s own wines, born of an economic independence to be proud of. A hybrid style, anchored to no trend except their own ideas and raw materials. The opening of a small hospitality structure, symbol of a Collio that must juggle entrepreneurship, the upkeep of those “countryside” traits that make it what it is, and unpredictable climate changes.

The Picechs are as much a part of the Collio as a certain Collio – familial, independent, courageous – is perfectly exemplified by Picech wines. Cheers!

Bottles Purchased

• Ruben Riserva × 2
• Athena
• Jelka Bianco
• Malvasia
• Friulano

Cost: €167

When on the Collio, also visit Gorizia.

The Wines of Picech Tasted Through the Years

This is a winery whose products I have often tasted, always with trepidation. Here is a brief summary of my experiences, now that I have only one bottle of Ruben Riserva left in my cellar.

The Malvasia is the wine where Picech’s hand shows most clearly. The 2022, drunk with parmigiana, was one of the most memorable bottles of recent years: austere, almost stern, with a silky texture that held up against the fat of the dish and an endlessly long finish that married perfectly with the bitterness of the aubergine. One of those pairings where the two elements multiply rather than add up. The 2023, with a beautifully fragrant nose of wet stone, cream and orange blossom, took a different direction: softer, more Burgundian, less juicy than usual. Not a disappointment, but a surprise. With the same parmigiana it didn’t work as well – the wine was too round to stand up to the dish.

On the Pinot Bianco I have one solid reference point: the 2022, drunk with brodetto alla gradese. Extroverted and fruity, with an acidity that ran across the tongue like needles before retreating into the fruit. The finish of nectarine peach was precise, almost clean-cut. A wine that doesn’t need much to make itself understood, which for this variety is actually quite something.

The Friulano is the wine that moved me most. The 2022, drunk with a Genoese focaccia, was a revelation: rich but never excessive, with a salinity that emerged naturally and an acidity that tingled the tongue and then reverberated discreetly on the lips. An elegant wine that cleansed the palate after every bite with surgical precision. The 2023, tasted with the same pairing, was instead a wine that preferred to whisper: acacia, preserved apple, and in the finish a spiciness almost reminiscent of Grüner Veltliner, surprisingly defined for a sip so light and elusive. Less immediate, but no less interesting.

The Jelka Bianco is perhaps the most difficult wine to read. The 2017, drunk with eight years on its back and a legume soup on the table, was all nuance: coconut, honey, lemon custard, a featherlight body that never imposed itself. The wine and the soup understood each other immediately – the fruit turned sweet alongside the beans, and the structure of the wine defined the borders of the sip. The 2019, served with cured meats, told a different story: little fruit, little substance, but an almost moving creamy texture and a saline finish that lingered. A bottle caught at the wrong moment, perhaps, or a less successful vintage. Hard to say with artisan producers like Picech.

The Ruben Riserva 2020 is a wine that doesn’t ask to be loved immediately. On the nose it was as full as a Rhône red: dark fruit, cassis, burnt sage and an undertone of milk chocolate coming from the long time in oak. On the palate, dry and grainy tannins took control, and the finish, seemingly endless, closed on liquorice and dark chocolate. Paired with a venison stew, it found its perfect match: the wine’s profile chased the game and played with it. A red you don’t expect from the Collio, which is precisely why it surprises you all the more.

The Athena is the wine that disappointed me most. The 2020, with goat’s cheeses, had an extraordinary nose: honey, caramelised almonds, flowers, ripe peach, rancio. An enormous promise. On the palate, the alcohol abruptly cut the conversation short – they say high alcohol is the reason wine gives you a headache the morning after; in my view, the first victims of alcohol are some wines themselves, as in this case. A more successful tasting of this bottle I had done at Ferronato in Pordenone, in a different context: chamomile, preserved lemon, wood spice and a very fresh finish of orange peel. There the wine had genuinely impressed me. Once again, the variability from year to year with Picech’s wines is considerable.

The wines of Picech, in my opinion, especially in vintages in which heat does not push them toward high alcohol levels, are very good, with peaks of excellence when speaking of Malvasia and Friulano. The winemaker’s interpretative key is that of juicy wines, not constructed but expressive, without chasing a style that is not his own. From this point of view, in particular the two wines already mentioned stand out for character and breadth of profile.

Alcohol management represents the most evident limit; this problem makes wines otherwise interesting become undecipherable. Thus even flagship products like Athena can sometimes leave one perplexed. This low reproducibility is the daughter of artisanal production, which works with what it has. In any case, the tasting is never trivial – and at times unforgettable.