Ronchi di Cialla is a historic producer in the Collio Orientali del Friuli, just under three miles as the crow flies from the Slovenian border.  Ronchi means “hills,” and Cialla, the name of the valley, comes from the Slovenian word cela which means “riviera.” It was given this name because it had a microclimate similar to the Mediterranean - with olive trees and other Mediterranean plants.

When Dina and Paolo founded the estate in 1970, they aimed to focus on native varieties. The Schioppettino variety had been declared extinct and, because of this, it was no longer able to be legally grown. Dina and Paola, therefore, had to fight to have it reinstated in the record books. In 1976 they were successful and received an award for reintroducing Schioppettino and bringing it back from extinction. In addition to Schioppettino (also called Ribolla Nera), they focused on Refosco and Pignolo, and for whites Ribolla Gialla, Verduzzo, and Picolit. The passion of Paolo and Dina Rapuzzi now continues with their sons Pierpaolo and Ivan whose aim is to give value to the ancient native grape varieties of Friuli in accordance with their philosophy of selective production of extremely high quality wines.

Vinification is carried out naturally in line with the philosophy of not forcing the transformation and aging phases, which always privileges the "typicity" given to cru wine. The maturing of the wines in oak barrels with a personalised dosage of wood and toasted oak staves, makes Ronchi di Cialla wines among the highest quality Italian wines, and absolutely the first white wines (1977) to use this old natural wine stabilisation process of ageing in oak barrels.