Direct Press March 2025 • Wines of Slovenia
DIRECT PRESS March 2025
Wines of Slovenia
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The physical beauty of Slovenia is almost dizzying. My husband and I arrived in Ljubljana last May after a six-hour train ride from Vienna, where we had enjoyed typical American tourist activities like admiring Art Nouveau architecture, wine tasting in the nearby Wachau Valley, and (in my case) slowly losing my shit over the speed of service in restaurants. Old Town Ljubljana, to me, was just as beautiful as Vienna, bisected as it is by the Ljubljanica River with al fresco dining dotting the embankments on either side.
Yet, unlike Vienna, almost no one (touristically speaking) was there. In Ljubljana, we did encounter other non-natives, but at a far less frequent cadence. As we explored the country, there were many moments when I stood marveling at my surroundings — the pristine Julian Alps, form instance, or the dazzling River Soča, with water so turquoise it seemed unreal — and could barely believe we were the only people there.
If Slovenia is overlooked in favor of larger neighbors like Austria and Italy, it’s due at least in part to the fact that, until its independence in 1991, there wasn’t really a “Slovenia” you could go and visit. For most of its history, the chicken-shaped territory was part of other empires, then spent years under socialist rule as part of Yugoslavia. That fractured identity impacted its winemakers, as well, who have only recently been able to reintroduce their wines to the global market.
We're excited to introduce our club members to a new generation of Slovenian producers, who are eager to gain recognition as sophisticated creators of low-intervention wines. You can read more about their history — and our other Slovenian wine selections — in the Direct Press 'zine!
Cheers,
Kate, Jonathan, Jeremy, and Greg
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