“My only regret in life is that I didn’t drink enough Riesling” – these are the lines I borrowed from Boštjan Protner Facebook post. And in a due manner, we’ll sip another expression of this fantastic variety which we find under the Joannes – Protner brand.

As you may imagine from the starting lines, the Protner family advocates passionately for riesling. And they also have ambitious plans for the variety. I hear there’s some extended skin contact maturing in acacia barrels. They are seriously thinking of adopting some production in concrete eggs, and they produce a liquor variation with this variety.

Bunches are coming from the Celestrina slope and were exclusively hand-picked. Following destemming and crushing, the must fermented in stainless vats and was then racked for one year in used oak barrels with fine lees. After that, it went again into stainless vats with lees for up to six years, to be then bottled without filtration.

This expression of Protner’s riesling displays a deep, golden yellow colour with a dense texture, quickly stopping the swirl in the glass.

Initially, the bouquet is slightly shy, but with the time ripe, scents start to boast into an alluring bouquet. We notice honey, dried apple and pineapple slices,  candied lemon zest, straw, dried yellow rose, wet wool, butter, vanilla, cloves, nutmeg, cedar and roasted almonds.

The taste is dry, reasonably soft, but with a concentrated and focused freshness with expressed minerality. A wine with intense taste, with just the right persistency and structure to form an elegant display of taste depicting flavours of dried and candied fruit, petroleum and minerality.

It is a wine showing its mature character, acting determined to please us for the next ten years, primarily thanks to its acidity. A bottle will cost you approximately 24 Eur, and you can order it by contacting the winemaker at vino@joannes.si or by calling +386 (0)41 654 305. Bottles are also available at Deliz.