Old World
Slovenia wine
A small producer of considerable influence, and one of the two places where the modern orange wine revival began.
Overview
Slovenia sits at the meeting point of Alpine, Mediterranean and Pannonian influences, and its three wine regions have less in common with each other than each does with the neighbouring country across its border.
Goriška Brda in the west is continuous with Italy’s Collio — the same hills, the same soils, a political line through the middle. It is the Slovenian half of the ground where extended-skin-contact white winemaking was revived in the 1990s.
The east grows Furmint under the name Šipon, a reminder that the Hungarian and Slovenian sides of that tradition were once one wine region.
Production is small and holdings are fragmented, so Slovenian wine reaches export markets mainly through a handful of committed importers rather than through volume brands.
Three quite different zones: Mediterranean along the Adriatic in the west, Alpine in the north, and continental Pannonian in the east.
Regions
continental · cool
Podravje
North-eastern Slovenia, continuous with Austrian Styria, and the country’s largest region for aromatic dry whites.
mediterranean · moderate
Primorska
Western Slovenia on the Italian border — the same hills as Collio under a different flag, and a birthplace of the modern orange-wine movement.
Wines
Grapes grown here
Sources
Sources consulted
- International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) — OIV
- eAmbrosia — the EU geographical indications register — European Commission