Ronco del Gnemiz sits on top of the Rosazzo hill in Friuli's Colli Orientali, near Udine, where Augustinian monks were making wine around the turn of the last millennium and the Abbazia di Rosazzo still anchors the ridge. The Palazzolo family bought the estate in the 1960s, and Serena Palazzolo remade it in the 1990s around responsible farming and single-site precision; she runs it now with her sons and her husband, the winemaker Christian Patat. The vineyards lie on Friuli's signature ponca of marl and sandstone, sheltered from the north by the Alps and cooled by sea breezes off the Adriatic, a combination that lends the whites their saline lift and long acidity. Every parcel is farmed and vinified on its own.

Ronco Basso comes from a chardonnay parcel planted in 2001 by massal selection, cropped low at around 30 hectoliters per hectare on the clay and limestone of Rosazzo. The site gives fruit with ripeness to spare, held in check by the low yield and Rosazzo's pronounced acidity.

The fruit is pressed whole cluster and fermented on its lees entirely in barrel, a third new and the rest second- and third-passage, with sparing bâtonnage and no malolactic to blur the line. It comes out layered but bright: yellow plum and quince, lemon zest, toasted hazelnut, and wet-stone salinity.