It has been archeologically proven that Georgia is the cradle of winemaking. The tradition dates to around 9.000 BC when people discovered that grape juice was turning into wine when left buried in shallow pits through the winter. Georgians nourished this discovery and started making wine in large clay vessels named “kvevri”.

In Slovenia a dear friend of mine – Jean is reviving this tradition and producing wine like the antique Georgians did. Yesterday I spent a wonderful day at Kabaj estate and today I found this video about the making of Amfora. I’m still under a strong impression after yesterdays tasting and can assure you that wine done in this way is special. If you close your eyes and taste it, it will feel as tasting a full bodied red wine. A detailed description of Amfora is on the way, but for now enjoy this truly educational video.

You can find more about winemaking using this method on Xeloba Kartuli’s website.

If you’re interested in visiting Kabaj estate here are the coordinates. Don’t forget to check-in.

Hello wine lovers!

Yes, I’m back, finally! Sorry for this long hiatus but I’m sure you’ll understand. There are some new things coming up, to mention one is a fresh design, thanks to my colleagues.

OK, since this is a blog about Slovene wine I have to start with, … for some of you maybe boring stuff…, but to understand Slovenia as a wine making country you have to know some of the following data.

Slovenia has approximately 22.000 hectares of vineyards, about 17.000 are registered. Wine is produced in 14 wine districts which are united in 3 wine regions:

- wine region Primorska,
- wine region Podravje,
- wine region Posavje.

(This is a wonderful map, but the name of the wine district Koper is wrong, it was changed to Slovenska Istra)

There are more than 27.800 registered winemakers, amongst them 1.700 bottling their own wine. Slovenian winemakers produce about 50.000.000 to 65.000.000 liters of wine yearly.

More than 50 different varieties of vine is being grown herem with white varieties prevailing. Vineyards are growing on steep slopes which on one hand results in high production costs, but on the other it brings high quality crop. In fact more than 60% of produced wine is of a higher quality.

The vineyards surface hasn’t changed a lot in the last few years, the vineyards were expanding until 1996, but then started to decline slowly. The prevailing white varietal vine declined in this period from 76% to 72%. Since the surface remained almost the same, the crop of grapes and wine was almost solely dependent of the weather.

This is it for now. That’s just some pure huge information, which will be explained throughout the blog. Next time I’ll present you our wine regions and their prevailing vine varieties so stay tuned…

Cheers!