Ferjančič – Zelen Domen, 2020

We’re visiting the Ferjančič family tonight, as there’s a special wine we’d like to have a look at. This one started ad an idea, as a curiosity to craft an expression of Zelen that focuses entirely on what this variety can express.

This wine is produced with the usage of autochthonous yeast. The ripest berries of Zelen are picked a couple of days before harvest; they are destemmed, crushed and create the fermenting liquor, which is used as a fermentation starter for the wine. This is what you might sometimes catch as “pied de cuve”.

By the time of harvest, yeast has pretty much multiplied and the curve ferments. So hand-harvested bunches are destemmed and left to macerate overnight in the press. All in inert and temperature-controlled conditions. After crushing, the juice is inoculated with the pied de cuve and racked into stainless vats, where fermentation starts. The juice is with fine lees and constantly stirred. It also conducts malic conversion. Finally, after a good six months, the young wine is bottled after coarse filtration.

Domen’s Zelen displays a golden yellow colour with accentuated density.

Its bouquet is intense, refined and inviting. We perceive hints of ripe yellow apple, peach, pineapple, carambola, lemon peel, white rose, almonds, and light notes of butter, thyme, and marl.

It is dry, soft, and reasonably warm, with crisp freshness and minerality. A balanced wine revealing an intense taste of pronounced elegance, full-bodied and lasting persistency.

You can drink it now, but it will evolve and refine for the next three to five years. A bottle will cost you approximately 12 Eur, and you can order it at Faladur, Vino direkt and Vino.ba.