The Brda region of Slovenia is known for its flavorful fruit, the region is most notable for cherries and grapes. I came to the region for the annual Open Wine Cellar Days in Dobrovo and discovered Rebula wine.
I came to this wine region because I met a woman from a women’s travel group in Slovenia on Facebook. I randomly posted on an ex patriot group that I was looking for someone to come on a couple of trips with me; someone commented for me post on the women’s group. She answered my post almost right away. We met and arranged that she would pick me up in Ljubljana and we would go on a wine tour about two and a half hours south west of Ljubljana. Her friend was driving and we all had a great time chatting on our way to Dobrovo, Slovenia.
We started our wine tour at the annual Open Wine Cellar Days in Dobrovo where we paid 25.00 Euro for the day’s activities. The event has a bus to go from vineyard to vineyard, but we opted to drive so we collected a map and headed out. The Open Wine Cellar Days occurs once a year, it’s during the end of the spring early summer for a whole weekend of wine dedicated activities in Brda. The Brda region is known for its flavorful fruit and most notable for cherries and grapes.
Goriška Brda wines have been developed from centuries old traditions of specially mastered white wines which Rebula is most notable in this region. To the delight of the creative young generation of wine makers this once disregarded wine has been reclaimed as a favorite.
We started our tour at Klet Brda which is the largest producer and exporter of Slovenian wines. They represent four hundred wine making families from Brda. Klet Brda was walking distance from the castle where we paid for the wine tour. When entering the wine tasting area, I didn’t know anything about Rebula wine so I tried the Sauvignon blanc, a merlot and pinot before I was offered the regional favorite Rebula.
I had never heard of this wine before, but this white wine with fruity yet dry earthy notes was perfect for my pallet. The first I tried was crisper and tarter, the second a fresh fruity variety and then the third was Bagueri which has been aged in smoky barrels for extra flavor. It was fantastic! I bought several bottles of wine before we went on the wine making tour. Their facility is like a museum and wine cellar in huge establishment. It was a fun experience and didn’t take long to see it all.
We drove on to more wineries, but ended up driving up some of the mountain back roads where we found the most amazing views and ruins of stone houses. We ended up getting lost on mountain roads, but continued on and the road returned us to Dobrovo which is where we started out. We stopped at vineyards along the road. One of the vineyards makes a sparkling Rebula with a fermentation process.
The wines were all fantastic! When we had enough to drink and were ready to eat we drove up a mountain top town called Kojsko where we ate at Marica. The steak was phenomenal! We finished the day watching the sunset over immaculate vineyards.
