San Floriano del Collio: vineyards, two languages and a parish church risen from war

There are places that do not shout to be noticed. San Floriano del Collio, Steverjan in Slovenian, is one of them: little more than seven hundred inhabitants set at around 276 metres of altitude, a handful of kilometres from Gorizia and a step from the Slovenian border. Here the hills of the Gorizia Collio roll gently one after another, cloaked in vineyards, and the silence is not empty but filled by the wind, by the rows of vines and by a horizon that on clear days reaches all the way to the Julian Alps.

The rebuilt church

At the centre of the village stands the parish church of San Floriano, and its story tells in miniature that of this whole borderland. The old building was reduced to a heap of rubble during the First World War: the Reconstruction Office of Gorizia, chaired by the architect Max Fabiani, designed its rebirth in the early 1920s, and the new church was completed and consecrated in 1926. It is not a postcard monument, but precisely for this reason it moves you: it is a stone set upright again after destruction.

The land of wine

The Collio is one of the cradles of Italian white wine, recognised among Italy's first DOCs as early as 1968. Around San Floriano the vineyards climb above two hundred metres, and the landscape is that, now rare, of a countryside still inhabited and worked. Walking or cycling along the farm lanes, stopping at a family winery, listening to Italian and Slovenian alternating are simple gestures that restore the sense of the place.

The art of slowing down

The village is dominated by a castle of ancient foundation, today tied to the area's winemaking tradition, but the real invitation is not to plan too much. You come here to slow down, to choose a destination that does not live on hit-and-run flows and where the presence of visitors remains sustainable for the community.

The ideal time is autumn, when the vines catch fire and the harvest arrives, or late spring. In summer it is less sweltering than on the plain, but it is the shoulder-season months that offer the quietest hills.

Getting there

San Floriano del Collio lies on the hills a few kilometres from Gorizia, the reference town for those arriving. By car you exit the A4 motorway and head for Gorizia, from which a short climb leads to the village; the most convenient railway station is that of Gorizia, connected to the village by a local bus. The reference airport is Trieste-Ronchi dei Legionari, about thirty kilometres away.