Winemaking in Slovenia

There is a joke that even Slovenian anthem is a toast. And that is actually half-true, as the anthem of Slovenia is a part of a poem of the most prominent poet France Preseren "Zdravljica" (A Toast), which start with

The vintage, friends, is over,
And here sweet wine makes, once again,
Sad eyes and hearts recover,
Puts fire in every vein,
Drowns dull care
Everywhere
And summons hope out of despair...

You can notice, that the verse has a shape of wineglass.

Slovenia has a long winegrowing and wine producing history. The first known vines here were planted by kelts, who came to nowadays slovenian territory between V and IV centuries BC. The kelts, also, were possible inventors of wooden barrel, so they did quite a lot for the history of winemaking.

With the Roman invasion winemaking continued to progress and even during the medieval times lots of local monasteries produced their own wines. From that time we know one of the most known slovenian types of wine which is called Cviček (ancient Slovenian “sour wine”). The main variety Cviček is produced of is Žametna - native Slovenian type of vine. Besides Žametna the blend is completed of Modra Frankinja (Blaufrankisch) and Kraljevina and sometimes Laśki Rizling (Italian Riesling).

By the way, the World’s oldest vine, still yields, grows here in Slovenian Maribor and it’s about 400 years old. It is called Stara Trta (Old Vine) and they even still produce some wine of it, which is, unfortunately, not for sale.

There are three major winemaking regions in Slovenia of about 21000 hectares total area. These are Podravje (next to Drava river), Posavje (next to Sava river) and Primorska (Adriatic coastal area). All of them differ with soils and climate, so do the wines. About 70 percent of growing vines are white, due to the climate features. On the small territory of Slovenia one can count up to 28000 (!!!) of wine producers, with an average size of vineyard of only 0,3 hectare. Besides that there is quite a significant diversity of 53 varieties of grapes. Wineries of Slovenia are mostly quite tiny as even the largest, Klet Brda, appears to be a collaboration of 400 winemakers and farmers.

Among the widely spread grape varieties are Reinski Riezling, Chardonnay, Malvasia, Furmint, Rebula. Speaking about the red ones, these are Teran, Zametovka, Merlot, Modra Frankinja and others.

As for the most known wineries are Klet Brda, Edi Simčič wine estate, Visa Poljšak, Leps Visa winery and many others.