Image kindly borrowed at MonteMoro homepage

Hello wine lovers!

I’d like to invite you to the 12^th Slovenian Wine Festival. It will be held this Thursday, the 19^th and Friday, the 20^th of November at Hotel Slon and Grand hotel Union.

The festival is one of the leading wine events in Slovenia and it presents a great chance to meet and have a chat with Slovene winemakers. Of course you’ll also be able to taste their wine !

For more info click here.

If by any chance you find yourself at the event, come visit me. I’ll be helping at MonteMoro‘s stand.

See you!

Here I am, back with a new post. Today I had the pleasure to taste some young wine. The invite came from Jure, a colleague from the sommelier course, who is working at the House of good wine – Koželj. Of course I couldn’t miss the chance, so there I was; 5 PM, a cold, rainy evening, with a lovely and warm atmosphere in the house…

You could say the tasting was divided in two parts. On the first floor it was all about wine region Podravje. There were five winemakers, each presenting his youngsters. There they were Johannes presenting Zeleni silvanec (slovene for Grüner Silvaner), Non + Ultra – Rose and Non + Ultra – Red; Gaube presenting his Prvenec; Falot with his young Muscat; Valdhuber and his Mladič; and Steyer with his Ranina.

On the other floor the atmosphere was red, red for the younglings from Primorska. There were Erzetič’s – Mladivo, Ščurek‘s – Medana novo and Kristančič‘s – Medana novo.

Johannes – Zeleni silvanec was my first try. The color is straw yellowish with a green shade. The nose is rather intense of fresh fruit and white flowers and is rather reach. The wine is dry, of a rather freshness and of a notable minerality on the palate. It is rather balanced with a tendency to the harder side.

I continued with Gaube – Prvenec. The wine is a kind of Muscat Ottonel (1/3) and Rizvanec (2/3). It is of a straw yellowish color with a green shade. The nose is rather intense, varietal and of fresh fruit (banana, vine peach). On the palate is rather balanced, but you sense it needs time to develop. Lets not forget we’re talking about young wine .

Falot – young Muscat was my next try. Straw yellowish color with green shades. The nose is rather intense, nuances of fresh fruit but less varietal. It is medium dry, with a rounder palate. The winemaker is brother of Valdhuber, which wine I tried next. Falot is known for its Muscat, but now they are expending their range to other varieties.

Valdhuber – Mladič is a kind of Kerner, Rizvanec and Yellow Muscat. It is of a straw yellowish color with green shades. The nose is rather refined, varietal and of fresh fruit (vine peach, banana) and is rather reach. It is medium dry, of a noticeable freshness and minerality, rather balanced with tendencies to the harder side.

Steyer – Ranina was perhaps the most intriguing (in a positive way) wine i tried today, it opened a question after another, but I’ll leave them opened for now. Ranina is a variety of vine. The wine is of a straw yellowish color. You notice fresh fruit and white flowers in the aroma. The wine is dry with a noticeable minerality and freshness.

After tasting all the white wine I returned to Joannes to try its Non + Ultra Rose. The wine is a kind of Pinot noir and Žametna črnina. It is of a lighter pink color. On the nose you can notice fresh fruit. It is dry, with a noticeable freshness and minerality. It is rather balanced with tendencies to the harder side.

Non + Ultra Red was the last wine of Podravje’s winemakers. It is a kind of Pinot Noir and Gamay.  It is of a purple red color. On the nose it has nuances of fresh forest fruit (blackberry, currants). It is dry on the palate, mineral and of a rather freshness.

Time to change the floor and try the red wines from wine region Primorska.

Erzetič – Mladivo was my first try. The wine is of a purple red color. On the nose it is quite intense, with nuances of forest undergrowth, currants… It is dry, of a moderate freshness and noticeable minerality. It is between full to thin bodied. You sense the wine is young and has yet to calm and balance, on the palate is like a wild horse pounding to the harder side.

Ščurek – Medana novo, a ruby color with garnet nuances. The nose is rather reach, intense to quite intense with aromas of blackberries, cherry, black currants, forest undergrowth… On the palate is dry, quite soft, of a noticeable freshness and tannins, quite balanced.

Kristančič – Medana novo was the last wine of the evening. It is of a ruby color with garnet nuances. Quite rich on the nose, with aromas of forest undergrowth, currants, cherry, blueberries… A dry wine on the palate, quite soft, of noticeable freshness, tannins and minerals. Quite balanced with tendencies to the harder side.

Today’s tasting was an interesting introspective to what we can expect out of the year 2009. I’m sure we’re heading into a wild and interesting season, so stay tuned for more.

Cheers!

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!

Me

Hello world and wellcome to my wine blog!

I’m Valentin Bufolin and I’m a passionate wine lover from Slovenia. I enjoy tasting wine, discovering its aromas and flavours and learning as much as I can from it.

My professional journey began recently by becoming sommelier. Since I’m still “fresh” I’ll try to give as much information as I’ll find and try to be as much impartial as I can be. Part of the reason I’m starting this blog is also to see and follow my learning progress.

The main purpose of this bog is to introduce you to Slovene wine, winemakers, our wine culture, wine history… I’ll also try to introduce you to our wine regions and explain the specific terroirs so that the information given will be as much useful as it can be.

The idea for this blog came out from a conversation with a good friend of mine – Jure Čuhalev, who works at Zemanta. We couldn’t think of someone who is writing a blog about Slovene wines in English… so here we are. Hope you’ll enjoy the reading as much as I’ll enjoy blogging.

If you have any additional questions, suggestions, propositions, want me to write a review of your wine, want to chat, have a glass of wine… feel free to contact me.

Contact me:

• E-mail: valentin@bufolin.com
• Mobile: + 386 41 443 116
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn profile
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bufo82
• Koornk: http://www.koornk.com/user/bufo