Paraschos - Π Winery

Paraschos is a small family-run winery in San Floriano del Collio. It was founded in 1998 by Evangelos Paraschos, who is of Greek origin and has grown grapes in San Floriano since 1979. Today the family, including Alexis and Jannis Paraschos, still makes wine following the old tradition of the Collio and the Vipava Valley. Their approach is summed up in one sentence: the territory is the constant, the vintage is the variable and man is the medium.

The family tends the vineyards without chemical fertilisers, herbicides or harmful pesticides. All the rows are grassed, the soil is worked only in winter when needed, and the grapes are picked by hand in the morning. In the cellar, built in 2003, no industrial yeasts and no chemical products have ever been used. For the family, wine is made from grapes and nothing else.

The Collio is a meeting point of climates and cultures, where the Mediterranean meets Central Europe and the Balkans. San Floriano is a few minutes from Gorizia, the town where Viennese merchants spent their holidays in Habsburg times. Guests can taste the wines in a shared or private session, and the farm stay has four rooms, built in 2013, overlooking the vineyards and woods. It is a quiet base for exploring the Collio, Friuli, Slovenia and Croatia.

Paraschos wines follow traditional local methods, adapted to each variety, vineyard and vintage. The eight-hectare estate grows Tocai Friulano, Ribolla Gialla and Malvasia Istriana, together with Merlot, Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon and Chardonnay, which have long been part of the local landscape. Depending on the variety, the grapes are pressed directly or macerated on the skins in vats or, for some selections, in terracotta amphorae. Yields are low and fermentation is spontaneous. The wines then age for a long time in large oak barrels, where they stabilise and clarify naturally. They are bottled without filtration and mostly without added sulphur.

Orange One is a blend of native white grapes with long maceration, a tribute to the historic wines of Gorizia from the time when the Collio and the Vipava Valley were one region. Kai is a pure Tocai Friulano from a 1936 vineyard at the foot of Mount Calvario, vinified as a white wine to show the salinity of its soils. The macerated Ribolla comes from high vineyards between San Floriano and Oslavia, where the ponca marl is rockier and yields are lower. Not is the flagship wine, a copper-coloured Pinot Grigio made since 2003. The range also includes the Amphoreus Malvasia, aged in amphora, the Ponka Collio Bianco and Merlot from the old Skala vines, a massal selection from the late 19th century.