Slovenian wine - SVL What is that?
With an invitation from SVL - Slovenska vina lega, a rather new private organization in Slovenia, currently 5 members and new classification system to visit Slovenia, I had a chance to look at the steep vineyard, talk to the people and of course taste the wines.
WINDY SLOPES AND GREEN GROVES
Slovenia is a green country with around 60% of the country being forest, the land is valleys and mountains with steep slopes and clearly suited to winemaking. The east, where the same region on the other side gets the best exposure, works well for viticultural.
The vines are mainly planted on narrow terraces. This way of growing vines was introduced around 1970, before that it was single pole, vertical plantings and one vineyard would take up to 30 vineyard workers to manage. Today 4 people can manage the same vineyard since it’s horizontal planting and tractors can be used.
It’s still possible to find single pole plantings and looking at these vineyards it’s easy to tell that machine work is impossible, so everything has to be done by hand.
In recent years, there has been a large amount of rainfall. Here cover crops come in handy to prevent erosion and suck up the surplus water. However, with cover crops the biggest problem for high wire trellises is humidity under the wires. Wind to avoid any downdraft from the wind over the slopes is a crucial viticultural partner, drying out the canopy and the landscape helping to abolish grey rot. To get the best out of the wind-effect, plantings on the slopes are limited to just 1.500-2.000 plants pr. hectare.
“Slovenia has 3 wine growing regions: Posavje (the smallest), Primorska (the warmest) and Podravje (the largest).”
Hail has also constituted a huge problem so today, multiple vineyards are covered with an anti-hail net. However, these nets also help with training the vines into VSP as well as protecting against sunburn and excessive solar rays – in fact the nets can reduce the sun exposure as much as 30%.
TRIO
Slovenia has 3 wine growing regions: Posavje (the smallest), Primorska (the warmest) and Podravje (the largest). They are further divided into 9 wine-growing districts.
Slovenska Velika Lega – The organization is about showcasing the quality of the different regions, not just the single area. Instead, the idea was also placed into a map of 3 levels that includes their top. “Level 1” a single vineyard. “Level 2” Cru single. SVL Lega “Level 3” Cru with more than one single vineyard. SVL also represents level 5 SVL Okolis the distinct regional village, as a next step for what is not cru worthy to have the latitude and longitude marked on the label. Bringing you to an AOC GPS that will take you to the vineyard.
On our trip we were presented with wines from Fid Šimon, Marof, Vino Gross, Süklar, Kobal, Domaine Ciringa and sparkling wines from Domaine Slapšak.
I think half the wines we tried were Chardonnay and Pinot noir and the other half was more a blend of Sipon and an international mix of local varieties such as Rebula, Furmint, Rebul, Laški Rizling which show many interesting things happening. The national varieties had the same quality levels that you will find in other recognized areas of the world, but also their local varieties were more interesting, showcasing a more terroir driven and elegant style. The producers all seemed to have defined what specialized, indigenous varieties.
The wine industry of Slovenia is trying to make changes to their winemaking based on long and hard work that has to be done in the vineyards to see quality improvements in their work and the passion is there for a part of this.
Small translation set:
Kakovoatvno = Quality
SUHO = Dry
SLADKO = Sweet
Sladkor = Sugar
Vsebine = Contents/Amount
Letnik = Vintage
Svecko = Organic
Pridelano = Produced
