The Luxury of Simplicity
It’s just a few hours drive south from Germany or Austria, get off the autoroute, a few roundabouts, and a country road, and you’ll arrive in the wide driveway of Sfriso Wine World — the home of Pier Sfriso’s winery cum camping ground. Every year, Pier welcomes people from all over (though mostly Germans) to come park their camper vans and trailers on his property, set up some camp chairs, pop a bottle of wine, and let it all go.
One denizen of his informal camp ground, on break from his high stakes corporate job in Germany, described the bliss of his vacation to Pier: "I am enjoying the luxury of simplicity.”
Yes, Pier thought, his own philosophy reflected back at him, in four words: the luxury of simplicity.
I had meant to just stop at the winery for a quick hello, taste a few wines and get to my hotel. I had done a lot of driving over the past couple of days, and thought what I needed was a quiet room. But no visit with Pier is quick, and the afternoon visit stretched out, with a little food, some choice records playing, a rotating cast of campers coming and going… and when I left, several hours later, I felt like everyone should have a session like this with Pier — not just as a winemaker, but as a philosopher, a DJ, a host, and most of all just a straight up good hang to spark your imagination for living well.
While Pier’s wines often present as carefree and uncomplicated — his fizzy farmhouse white, or bubbles that go down way too easy — the man behind them has thought deeply about what it means to live well.
You might miss it at first glance, with Pier a blur of energy from the moment you arrive; pouring wines while taking a call, switching the music on the stereo, rushing to grab another bottle from the fridge, producing a morsel of food from nowhere, telling three stories simultaneously. Imagine the Energizer Bunny, if the Energizer Bunny had strong opinions about the Cure’s Robert Smith and the Prosecco Consorzio.
But spend a little time with him and his philosophy emerges. He'll tell you about when the Prosecco Consorzio suggested his wines might not conform to their standards — and how he walked away without a second thought, because he was more interested in meeting his own standards rather than theirs.
He'll tell you about the day he noticed that families camping nearby, looking for a way to gather, so he fired up his grill, started cooking sausages, and turned his winery into a community hotspot and sanctuary of sorts.
He'll tell you, as he told me, "People who like wine are people who enjoy good food and, as a consequence, people who enjoy life, traveling and meeting new people. This is, in short, who I am."
And then he'll pour you another glass, as he paints a picture with words:
“Imagine you are home at the end of a long day. You have friends visiting. You think, should we go out or stay in? Let’s pour a glass of wine, sit outside in the afternoon light, and see what happens. The glass is cold in your hand, the bubbles carry the aromas of pears and ginger to your nose. You are not overthinking anything. You are just there, present, enjoying exactly what is in front of you. The luxury, it turns out, is in the simplicity of the moment, and letting it linger.”
Many of you already know Pier’s wines, and have painted your own picture of the good life with a bottle or two. We’ve got a fresh restock coming our way from Italy, and today is your chance to load up on three different bubbly wines from Sfriso.
Sfriso
Verde Frizzante
This is it — the bottle with the string! A perennial favorite around here and truly unique. This is 100% Verduzzo Trevigiano, an indigenous variety that now accounts for less than 1% of plantings in the Veneto, where everyone else has pivoted to Prosecco. Pier makes it the way farmers always did: light, fine fizziness, low pressure, closed with a simple string over the cork. Fresh pears, ginger and lychee on the nose. Very fresh, with good acidity and just 11.5% alcohol. Ice this down and open for any occasion.
Sfriso
Bella Vita Extra Brut
When Pier walked away from the Prosecco Consorzio, he needed to name his flagship wine. Why not name it after something he is aiming to create: a Beautiful Life. This is sparkling wine, in the tradition of Prosecco, on his own terms. 100% Glera, with no dosage, producing a precise and very dry sparkling wine. Bursting with aromas of gardenia, white strawberries and mandarin, with a clean, mineral-edged finish.
Sfriso
Rosé Brut
Here is another take altogether on the sparkling wines of the region. The Rosé is made from 100% Refosco, a local red variety, macerated for 9 hours on the skins to achieve a pale salmon pink — Pier commented as he poured this for me “The color turns me on!” Fresh red fruit, and blood orange on the nose, with a complement of white flowers. Immediately charming with a delicate texture and saline finish, and that same clean, refreshing quality, that runs through everything he makes.