Wine of the Week

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Some parts of the former Yugoslavia may be mired in internecine strife but the Slovenes are different and have just quietly gotten on with building a modern society. Foolishly my expectations prior to this trip had been low. So many of the former communist or socialist countries have struggled with the change to capitalism and in the wine world this has tended to mean low investment and old-fashioned, inconstant wines with dreadful packaging whose main appeal to Irish consumers has been price. But boy was I wrong to mentally lump the Slovenians in with the likes of Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia.

Slovenia’s history and geography make it something of a melting pot, a fascinating rainbow of cultures and climates, all crammed into a relatively small space with a population of just under two million. There also seems to be a drive and determination to succeed and this is certainly no impoverished backwater. Minister McDowell need have no fear of Ireland being swamped by hoards of Slovene ‘welfare tourists’.

In the 13 years since independence the best wine estates have blossomed into fine producers with state of the art wineries following serious problems following independence and the start of the break up of state co-ops. The frontier with Italy has been redrawn several times and many farms and wine estates now actually straddle the border.(in the picture above the house is the frontier) The Italian side of the border, Collio in Friuli, makes very modern expensive varietal wines and not surprisingly the wines can be similar on the Slovenian side.

The western vineyard region on the border with Italy and the Adriatic is known as Priomjask The varieties grown are not surprisingly a mixture of the international and indigenous. For whites, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Blanc, Tocai Friulano, Malvasia, Ribolla and Picolit can all perform well.

Popular red varieties include Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Barbera and Pinot Noir plus the indigenous Refosk, also known as Teran when grown on the terra rossa soils of Kras.

My initial impressions after tastings and meeting producers are that Sauvignon Blanc is particularly good here. Most producers seem to make it using wood in a Californian like ‘Fumé Blanc’ style that is not as heavy or clumsy as the American versions while a few make vibrant, pure unwooded herbaceous styles that will have the South Africans and Kiwis looking over their shoulders. It always helps a country or wine region to have a unique offering and for Priomjask it could be Rebula. With its firm acidity, non-aromatic nose, and good body it almost passes as Slovenia’s answer to Chablis and is also great base material for sparkling wine.

The early ripening Merlot was consistently the best of the reds tasted which makes me think that Pinot Noir could do well and the one we did try from leading producer Movia was superb.

The bulk of the country’s vineyards actually lie in the east, on the borders with Austria, Hungary and Croatia, so we travelled next to the South East of the country, to a region called Posavje, where we stayed at the sparkling wine producer Istenic. The climate here has less Mediterranean influence and is more alpine. Hence reds are less likely to ripen and firm acids found are useful in sparkling wine production. With luck, some years they can also make ice wines too.

Here, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon are supplemented by Muscat, Welshriesling, Rhine Riesling with Blaufraenkisch for the reds. There were some real highpoints at our tasting including some stunning ice wines from a producer called Prus and first-rate sparklers from our host Miha Istenic. Incidentally ex Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic was enjoying his dinner at the next table during our tasting.

In the North East of the country Podravje is the country’s largest winegrowing region and is subdivided into seven districts. An array of wines were paraded before us and several were a real delight. Grape varieties grown here are similar to Posavje but additionally, given the Austro-Hungarian influence, others are grown including Furmint, Gewürztraminer, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir for the reds.

Do Slovenian wines have a future in Ireland? I hope so. The best of them are very good and sadly for us they would probably also be quite expensive, but there are some good quality affordable wines to be found too. Also a couple of the big co-ops are working with Angela Muir MW as a consultant to see if she can help them produce the kind of good quality affordable wines that the UK and Ireland lap up. Perhaps it’s best to view Slovenia as a sort of Balkan New Zealand, capable of producing high quality individual wines to complement the bulk wines of a neighbour, i.e. Australia if you’re a Kiwi, but in their case Italy.

On the downside many a label reads like a bad hand at scrabble, but smart producers, like Edi Simčič are working to simplify them and keep all the technical and legislative information in small print on the back label so as not to frighten us off.

At the time of writing few if any were yet imported but that should change. If you really want to try them then why not visit? Ryanair and Easyjet fly from Stansted to Trieste and Ljubljana respectively and you’ll find a beautiful country with friendly people and reasonably priced food and accommodation when you get there. Besides, apparently Ljubljana is the ‘new’ Prague, so what are you waiting for?

The wine tasted on the show was H. Protner 'Joannes' Chradonnay 2002 (from Podravje) 88/100 and a can of Union beer because they make very good beer in Slovenia.

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