Massican Annia White Blend 2022

“Annia” is the flagship bottling of Dan Petroski’s tiny, white wine-focused Massican operation in the heart of Napa Cabernet country. Massican is about as anomalous as wine projects get, but to his considerable credit, Petroski has created a sensation with his lineup of racy, mineral, low-alcohol, modestly oaked whites. “Annia” is an homage to some of the iconic blended whites made in Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, combining Tocai Friulano (now officially known as “Friulano” in its homeland) and Ribolla Gialla with a splash of Chardonnay; it even spends a little time aging in barrels (some of them new), but you’d never know it because the acidity is so well-preserved and the fruit so vivid.

Coming in at just 12.5% alcohol, it nevertheless displays great concentration and energy in the glass. It doesn’t feel “light” at all. In the glass, it has a medium yellow-gold core moving to silver and green at the rim, with perfumed aromas of white peach, apricot, citrus peels, wildflower honey, green herbs, and wet stones. For lovers of the Friulano grape from Friuli-Venezia-Giulia itself, this wine is California’s most faithful representation: the variety’s distant relation to Sauvignon Blanc is discernible in the aromas, while on the palate the Ribolla Gialla is there to jolt your palate to life and ready you for some food.