What a day! Once again the sun was shining as we headed west towards the Italian border and the high quality region of Primorska, specifically Goriška Brda. This part of Slovenia has the best reputation for wines and some of the countries best producers are to be found here.
Our first stop was at the Movia winery in Dobrovo. We had already met Ela Movia at the tasting room in Ljubljana on Thursday so we were up to speed with the history. However, we were not expecting the sumptuous interior decoration of the tasting room nor the quite stunning views from the beautiful terrace. Ela’s mother Vesna welcomed us to the family estate and Nina who is the partner of Lan Movia (Ela’s brother and winemaker) hosted the tasting. It was time once more to open a bottle of fizz under water with the special tool!
We then worked our way through a top class selection of wines that were all different to Thursday and firmly asserted the Movia estate as one of the best in Slovenia.
From Movia it was a short hop to Osterija Klinec where we enjoyed more stunning views and an array of natural wines that challenged the senses to some degree but offered an important insight into Orange wines and extended skin contact styles. While the wines may not have been to everyone’s taste, it added to the breadth of Slovenia wine output. Cold cuts, fresh cheeses, gnocchi and roast pork and pannacotta filled us up once more.
Another five minute hop took us to Edi Simcic – another top estate and one I have visited over many years. Aleks Simcic hosted our visit and he was in fine form as the harvest had finished successfully a couple of days before – we passed crates of stems that been detatched from their berries!
A short tour of the winery was followed by a fascinating selection of top class wines where we contrasted aged Rebula, experienced Sauvignon Blanc from two different sites and took in four fabulous Bordeaux grape reds.
This was a fine end to a great day.
