Top 100 wines of Slovenia - Page 9

Discovering the wine region of Slovenia

Slovenia is a small European country with a Long history of wine production. This is not surprising given its Mediterranean location between the Northern latitudes of 45 and 47 degrees, latitudes shared by Bordeaux, Burgundy and the northern Rhône. The country is also bordered by four of Europe's Oldest wine producing countries: Croatia to the South, Hungary to the east, Austria to the north and Italy to the west. Despite the cultural and political turmoil that has besieged the Balkan states over the past century, Slovenia has maintained its wine industry, which has flourished particularly since the country gained independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Slovenia is largely landlocked, with only a few kilometers of coastline at the top of the Istrian peninsula, just south of Trieste and the Venezia-giulia/friuli">Friuli-venezia-giulia/carso">Carso DOC of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Slovenia's Climate has some maritime tendency to the west, drawn from the northern Adriatic, while there are strong continental influences to the north and east, created by the Alps and the Pannonian basin. The topographical variation makes it difficult to classify Slovenia into a climatic category, and its climate is often described as "sub-Mediterranean". This variation also gives wine producers a wide choice as to where to locate their vineyards.

While general climatic patterns play out across the country, within these macroclimates there are a series of more subtle variations that contribute to local terroirs. Slovenia has three main wine regions: Podravje in the east, Primorska in the west and Posavje just south of the centre. Podravje is the engine room of the Slovenian wine industry, producing about half of the country's national output. Its densest vineyards are located around the eastern city of Maribor, in the valleys of the Pesnica, Drava and Mura rivers.