The pleasures of Slovenia's wine road

Meander up and down the winding roads of "Slovenia's Tuscany," sampling quality vintages, meeting the winemakers in their homes and experiencing rural Slovene hospitality at its best. Stop at a local inn to sample the local cuisine. Visit the Movia manor, source of some of the country's best and most imaginative wines.

Quick Tips:

Remember, most vineyards are small family operations, and the families tend to be busy; ALWAYS call ahead and make sure they’ll be open when you plan to visit. Making a definite appointment is even better. Also remember that many winemakers in Brda (and other wine-growing areas) don’t speak English; take along a Slovene speaker if you can’t manage the language, or failing that, some knowledge of Italian or German would undoubtedly prove useful.

Start early in the morning if you're traveling from Ljubljana; although on a map the distance might seem shorter, much of the way is traversed along local roads and the journey takes about two and a half hours. If you can spare the time, find local lodgings to spend the night (and remember, Italy is only a few miles away).

Best Way To Get Around:

Although the Goriska Brda wine region is compact, a private auto is the only practical way to get around - and do travel with a designated driver!

Wine words to know

Suho = dry

Polsuho = Semi-dry

Polsladko = Semi-sweet

Sladko = Sweet

Vrhunsko vino = Premium wine (gold label)

Kakovostno vino = Quality wine (silver label)

Namizno vino = Table wine, the cheap stuff (bronze label, or bottlecap in place of cork)

Pozna trgatev = late harvest (German spätlese): tends to be more intense, aromatic, and sweeter than the normal harvest.

Izbor = ‘selection’ (German auslese): similar to pozna trgatev, a bit more alcoholic and sweeter (and pricier) than the everyday version.

Jagodni izbor = beerenauslese or ‘berry selection’, even more intense than izbor; always semi-sweet to sweet; a dessert wine to be served chilled; usually comes in small bottles (0.375 liter).

Suhi jagodni izbor = trockenbeerenauslese or ‘dry berry selection’, made from berries infected with ‘noble rot’; a great dessert wine, served chilled; will age well. Expensive. Call it ‘TBA’ (or when in Slovenia, ‘SJI’), if you want to be taken for an insufferable wine snob.

Ledeno vino = Ice wine; rare, pricy, super-concentrated, quite sweet dessert wine. First produced in Slovenia in 1985. The taste may remind you of a fortified wine, or even brandy; if possible, sample a glass before you commit to buying a bottle.

Arhivsko vino = Archive wine. Wine that has gone through a predefined period of barrel and bottle aging. Mark of high quality.

Na zdravje! = (‘nozz dhrow-yeh") To your health. What you say prior to imbibing.

Viticulture in the Slovene lands goes back some 2400 years, to Celtic tribes predating the Roman Empire. But it doesn’t mean present-day winemakers hew to ancient methods: the Phylloxera plague of the late 19th century, which devastated vineyards across Europe, also did a number on Slovenia’s vineyard traditions. Today the country’s total vineyard acreage is roughly equivalent to France’s Bordeaux region, although the yield is only about half of Bordeaux’s. In 1997 Slovenia produced about 105 million liters of wine, of which approximately 90 percent was consumed domestically -- almost all, presumably, by Slovenes, who say na zdravje! to an annual 45 liters per person. (The three biggest export destinations are the USA, UK and Germany.)

Slovenia does produce some of what wine snobs call "refrigerator plonk," undistinguished table wine for under $3 per liter, but a full 70 percent is graded at quality or premium level. The Slovenes’ "problem" is the small production quantities precluding their wine’s gaining the fame of larger nations’. In many small operations, annual yields of 1000 bottles for one varietal are common, and 2000 to 8000 bottles are usual for all but the largest concerns. Most winemakers don't need to advertise, or do much at all in the way of marketing: word-of-mouth private buyers and sales to gostilne (country inns) and restaurants pretty much take care of the supply, at least of the good stuff.

Because Slovene wine exporters can’t compete in price with the likes of Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania, they’re been forced to market quality; it’s been the case for 30 years. While it results in thin profit margins, it’s a boon for consumers in the know -- and, of course, for the Slovenes. As it is, excellent bottles of Slovene wine can be had for as little as $4 or $5 on home ground, so why complain?

Slovenia’s wine country is divided into three regions: Podravje (named for the Drava river valley) in northeastern Slovenia, including Maribor, Ptuj and the Hungarian border region; Posavje (the Sava valley) in central-eastern Slovenia; and Primorska, the coastal region. These are in turn divided into 14 smaller zones, and there are 20 tourist-oriented wine roads.

Podravje produces almost all whites, and much of the very best; look for Traminec (Traminer), Renski rizling (Rhine riesling), Sivi pinot (Pinot gris), Beli pinot (Pinot blanc) and Sauvignon. Late-harvest (pozna trgatev) and izbor Laski rizling (select Welschriesling) can be revelations. Posavje’s products, both whites and reds, are considered of average quality; the most famous Posavje wine is the bargain-priced Cvicek, a tart, light red blend with absolutely no class, but very quaffable.

Primorska concentrates on reds; the better growths of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Barbera are exceptional (try the barrique style, aged in new oak barrels), but the region's best-known wine is Teran, grown in the Karst area. Teran is a rich, heavy, old-fashioned red that goes well with meats, but isn’t for every taste; think something to accompany roast beef on a December night. (winemaker Boris Lisjak’s ‘Osti Jarej’ Kraski Teran, which comes in a designer bottle, is both widely available and one of the style’s finest; you might also try Teranton, a high-end vintage Teran.)

As for where to buy the stuff: if you're in Ljubljana and don’t have time to hit the wine road, stick to a specialty store like Vinoteka, rather than supermarkets (where storage is questionable). If you’re lucky enough to find yourself in Ljubljana in the spring, the Fairgrounds hosts a well-established international wine fair at which serious (and plenty of not so serious) lovers of the grape gather and judge for themselves. As the afternoon wears on, otherwise buttoned-up Slovenes break into spontaneous barbershop-quartet harmonizing, strangers start conversations over Cabernet and Chardonnay, and visiting Americans are heard exclaiming, "Wow, this is the best wine I’ve ever tasted in my life."

If mom-and-pop wineries such as Cjanova Kmetija represent the cottage end of the scale in Goriska Brda, Movia, in Ceglo village, is a manor house – literally. From the moment you pull up to the elegant, pink-washed facade, it’s obvious you’ve arrived at a capital-D Destination. Movia wines have been served to Josip Broz Tito, Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II (probably not at the same state dinner), and stand at the highest level of Slovene viticulture.

Movia has been in continuous family operation since its founding in 1820 -- always independent, even during the Tito years -- and is one of Brda’s more full-service operations. Besides vineyards, it includes pressing, fermentation, storage and bottling equipment, a substantial cellar (with vintages dating to 1943, complete with cobwebs that Hollywood couldn’t improve upon), a tasting room, and a large, elegant dining room with a sweeping view onto the vineyards and surrounding rolling hills. Not the least of its assets is Ales Kristancic, who took over day-to-day operations from his father Mirko in 1985 after apprenticing in France. Unlike Princic, the business’s technical side doesn’t much interest the 30-ish winemaker, but his exercise-room workout garb and unshaven face fail utterly to mask his intense gaze and purposeful manner as we tour the premises. When asked to explain what sets apart a superior winery from the pack, he supplies a one-word answer: "Philosophy." Kristancic, who is building a reputation outside his country's borders as Slovenia's best and most imaginative winemaker, is a philosopher of the grape.

"It’s not so easy to find bad wine in Slovenia," he elaborates, switching between Slovene and English, as we survey the long rows of wooden barrels in the aging room. "But it’s difficult to find one with a story. For that, I think the story comes with the work of the winemaker. Ninety-nine percent of wines are easy, commercial, simple and popular. The wine is always OK. This is top quality wine, but there is nothing new! It is impossible to have a philosophy (for these)."

In the dining room, Kristancic (who also heads the Slovene chapter of the international Slow Food gourmet society) regularly brings together guests he invites from throughout Slovenia and abroad: prominent winemakers, writers, doctors, and politicians from across the ideological spectrum.

"These are people who ordinarily wouldn’t be together, but here they put their differences aside," he says. Upstairs are rooms to stay the night, but no one, explains Kristancic, ever pays for them. "People who are here are guests. We always want to do things differently here."

Movia bottles a line of younger, lighter wines under the Villa Maria label, but the winemaker’s heart lies in crafting the house’s signature offerings like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and the varietal blends Veliko Rdece and Veliko Belo (Big Red and Big White). Kristancic glories in mixing grape varieties as he does the personalities at his dinners, trying to create new and fascinating combinations. (In both pursuits, the readiness is all.) His wines are among Slovenia’s most expensive, but they’re worth it – and real bargains next to bottles of comparable quality from France and California.

Judging from the wall plaques certifying medals awarded at various wine fairs (not to mention the evidence in the glass), Movia’s and Kristancic’s artistry has won plenty of fans. (And despite the winemaker’s protest that "art and money are never together," Movia appears to be doing very well.

Movia maintains a website (thus far, in Slovene only) at link

It was late November, the burja was blowing at over 60 mph, and my friend K. and I, riding in a small Renault down the hilly, winding highways of western Slovenia, definitely felt its presence as it broadsided the auto. The Slovenes call it the burja; to the next-door Italians, it’s the bora. The fierce, cold northeasterly winds of autumn are great if you’re curing air-dried hams, but however it’s spelled, the burja spells trouble for trucks, with their high centers of gravity. Along the way we passed convoys of 20 or more big rigs, all parked on the shoulder by a highway entrance, waiting for things to literally blow over. Their caution was well-founded; driving on, we spied at least a half-dozen other trucks ("Oh look, there’s another one!") that the gusts had hurled from the highway and toppled onto their sides.

It was a turbulent road to an obscure place at the edge of an obscure country between the Alps and the Adriatic. Border areas, of course, historically make the likeliest battlegrounds, and here was no exception; in this corner of the map the Latin, Germanic and Slavic worlds have met and clashed for centuries. The Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, across the border in northeastern Italy, and the town of Kobarid (Caporetto) to the north, now part of Slovenia, were the scenes of some of the bloodiest battles of World War I. But, the burja aside, things are considerably more subdued these days. In this part of Slovenia, an independent republic since making a relatively clean break from Yugoslavia in 1991, people quietly do what they’ve done here since Roman times: tend vineyards.

There’s a lot of the Secret Garden to rural Slovenia, nowhere more so than on the wine road in Goriska Brda. A popover-shaped bulge against the Italian border, Goriska Brda (Gorica Hills) is known throughout Slovenia for the quality of its cherries and peaches ("Brda grown" is a selling point in the markets of the capital, Ljubljana). But within Brda, the grape takes unquestioned pride of place.

First-time visitors to Slovenia’s wine roads could do worse than begin here. Friendly people, excellent wine, and an unspoiled landscape that’s been compared to Tuscany: it all adds up to an enchanting day trip.

Sneeze in Goriska Brda, and an Italian catches cold. The official wine road flirts with the border, and the main road from Nova Gorica town even leads through a corridor, surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, that takes you through a two-kilometer knob of Italian territory (sans customs agents) before depositing you back into Slovenia.

The two countries are knit together by vineyards, some owned in common across the border. Each turn of the road reveals a new postcard-ready view of terraced hills studded with gnarly vines -- the vines themselves sere and brown in November, post-harvest, though the hills remain green. The landscape is punctuated by hilltop villages with centuries-old church towers, cypresses and narrow lanes of coarse gravel lined on either side by ancient, crumbling stone houses. For all this, Brda, culturally and historically, is Slovene ground.

Brda is one of Slovenia’s smallest wine-growing regions, only about five miles across in any direction. Within its boundaries, though, exist 60 registered wineries and perhaps 70 or 80 other private producers and bottlers. The number of these run by various members of the same family -- siblings, offspring, cousins -- in this close-knit place is impressive. There are two Jakoncic wineries, one named Bucinel and two Buzinel, one Reja and two Reya, three Kovac, four Mavric, and no less than five named Kristancic. Those seeking out a specific wine on its home ground are therefore obliged to carefully note the winemakers’ first names (fortunately, these are printed on the labels). The situation baffles the Slovenes themselves; one can imagine a visiting foreigner’s fate. But don’t let the name games put you off -- a trip to Brda is worth the potential confusion.

Our first stop was Cjanova Kmetija (Cjan Cellars) in the hilltop village of Cerovo. The winery is a classic mom-and-pop operation: processing and bottling happen in a two-room building of cement block and stone, more practical than quaint, redolent of fermenting grape and crowded with stacks of red plastic crates holding full bottles (the necks sealed with brown wax rather than foil). The tasting room is a folding table and a couple of glasses that Zorana Princic brings out when customers call. K. and I sipped a well-balanced, velvety Cabernet and listened as Zorana’s husband Zvone, a middle-aged man wearing a blue one-piece jumpsuit, ski cap and cherubic expression, held forth cheerfully and at great length on such topics as autochthonous grape varieties, soil structure, fertilizer requirements and nitrogen content. Zorana stood by stoically throughout. To hear him tell it, Zvone’s family has tended vines in Brda since shortly after the earth’s crust cooled. Though he’s been a winemaker himself since 1972, he’s only recently, following his daughter’s lead, been pursuing his current niche, organic wine, using an all-natural approach.

Princic sells mostly to country inns, fancier restaurants, and private buyers. The man is a fount of historical tidbits, such as the French origin of many of Brda’s families; he also informed us that during the Austro-Hungarian empire’s reign, the emperor’s court vineyards were located here. Family connections run so deep in Brda, according to Princic, that out of over 100 wineries, only two have an employee who isn’t a family member (or, as he put it, "an employee who’s actually employed").

Slovrenc is a townlet whose one main road winds its rocky way up a steep hill. Almost every dwelling here houses a winemaking family. Reaching, at dusk, Anton and Josko Mavric’s compound at number 9, the lady of the house ushers us into the coziest of tasting rooms, complete with rustic wooden table, benches and blazing hearth. Anton, a solid sixtyish presence seated next to son Josko, says his family has made wine in Brda since at least 1828, but adds that certain historical records date their efforts in the region back over seven centuries. We sample one of their prides, the 1997 Sivi Pinot (Pinot Gris), a gold medalist at the 1998 Ljubljana wine fair. We concur with the judges’ choice; it’s an excellent example of the style, balanced, aromatic and complex. Anton is surprised, too, at the amount of the current crop already fit for imbibing. This mlado vino ("young wine", the Slovene version of nouveau), crisp, fruity and uncomplicated, can be readily found in Brda, and was offered at Anton and Josko’s as well as down the hill at the winery of their cousins, Peter and Ivan Mavric.

And so down the Slovrenc hill we went, for a last stop, at the winery of said cousins, which looks exactly like the comfortable country home it is. Sampling said mlado vino, I ask Peter Mavric how many relatives he has in the wine business in Brda. He replies, matter-of-factly: "Almost all of them!"