Livio Felluga, the Carta Geografica turns 70. Between Rosazzo and infinity

IN BRIEF

Livio Felluga’s iconic wine label was born in 1956
Livio Felluga’s map invites exploration of the Friulian hills, highlighting the bond between wine and territory.
Wine cannot be separated from place; the production is a tribute to the Friulian hills abandoned after the war.
Terre Alte is born from the union of selected grapes and presents different vintages that offer complexity and freshness, maintaining the terroir’s balance.
Seventy years later, the Carta Geografica continues to tell the story of a place, with the wine reflecting the different harvests and the passing of time.

A map is the promise of a destination. That of Livio Felluga, present for 70 years on wine labels that have become world icons of Italian winemaking, is an invitation to reach the Friulian hills, traced one after another with short, dark marks. Around the Abbazia di Rosazzo, the map becomes a landscape of ponca, vineyards, and memory. It was here that Felluga bought his first vineyards, back in the 1950s. In the glass, a vertical tasting of Terre Alte turns into liquid geography, from 1999 to 2021. But first, a step back.

A MAP BEFORE THE WINE

In 1956 Livio Felluga chose an antique representation of Friuli-Venezia Giulia for his labels, purchased at an antiques shop. It was no simple drawing, but a genuine Napoleonic-era map that brought the territory to the forefront. A Copernican revolution, at a time when wine was not yet told through its origin, but mainly through the name of the producer and the grape variety.

That choice anticipated an idea now familiar: wine can be the reflection of the place it comes from. For Felluga, it meant restoring value to the Friulian hills, many of which had been abandoned after the war. Not only that. The label also brought the vine back to the center of the landscape. In seventy years, the geography has changed. But the direction has stayed the same.

Today the estate cultivates 187 hectares of vineyard, within a 242-hectare property with over 320 parcels across Rosazzo, Colli Orientali del Friuli, and Collio. Each parcel carries its own exposures, altitudes, winds, and microclimates. To read them properly, one must accept the label’s invitation and visit those hills, where viticulture can require up to 500 hours of manual labor per hectare.

LIVIO FELLUGA AT ROSAZZO, BETWEEN PONCA AND MEMORY

At Rosazzo, the map meets a history that predates the label by many centuries. The Abbazia di Rosazzo, whose origins date back to the 11th century, was one of the centers from which vine and olive cultivation spread, and from which the very story of Livio Felluga the entrepreneur began. The hills face the Adriatic and are shielded from cold northern winds. Temperature swings contribute to the aromatic complexity of the wines.

Beneath the vineyards lies ponca, an alternation of marl and sandstone formed roughly 55 million years ago. The soil drains water while retaining a reserve of it, allowing the roots to dig deeper. But Rosazzo cannot be summed up by geology alone. The slopes, the ronchi, and the rows are also the result of the work through which man has shaped and cared for the land.

At the top of one of the estate’s hills, the Vigne Museum translates that same relationship into architecture. Conceived by Yona Friedman with artist Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, it is an open structure of metal circles, threaded through by a hundred vine shoots planted in 2014. The vegetation and the changing seasons continually transform its appearance. Here too, time is not just a backdrop. It becomes part of the work. Which is part of the geography.