Ode to Freshness: A New Chapter for Brda’s Vibrant Wines

The Slovenian wine region of Brda continues to prove its mettle in producing wines of concentration, depth and pronounced minerality, with producer excitement for the nervy elegance of recent vintages clear the moment we arrived for our tastings, which encompassed 100 wines from 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Upon our arrival in September in Brda, which is part of the wider viticultural region of Primorska in western Slovenia, we were whisked to the merlot vineyards of leading Goriska producer Marjan Simcic to taste the pronounced freshness of grapes still on the vine. Harvest had not yet begun.

Primorska’s seaside location lends itself to the vibrancy Simcic celebrates. Literally a translation of “near the sea,” it’s comprised of four subzones: Brda, Vipavska Dolina, Istria and Carso. Adriatic breezes set it apart  from the country’s two more continental regions: Podravje, near Austria and focused on Austrian varieties, and Posavje, bordering Croatia and home to international whites, pinot noir and blaufrankisch.

In Brda, near Mount Nanos – a karst plateau between the capital city of Ljubljana and the coast – a cold, gusty wind known as the Bora races down the mountain slopes toward the warmer Adriatic Sea. Lan Kristancic, the ninth-generation winemaker at his family's Movia winery, credits this wind with the distinctive freshness of Brda’s vineyards.

The Bora’s wildness can be destructive, but producers like Kmetija Hedele in Vipava Valley have successfully experimented with protective viticulture, planting dry-farmed, untrellised bush vines.

Varietal choices in Brda also play to the region’s cool personality. Among reds, merlot leads the way over cabernet sauvignon: the latter tends to struggle reaching full ripeness at season’s end, while merlot can deliver remarkable grace and depth in the region’s climate and soil.

Brda also produces excellent traditional-method sparkling wines, now reaching notable quality. Medot is one of the names to watch, crafting extra brut and rosé bottlings with the expertise of Pierre-Yves Bournerias, a highly regarded consulting winemaker from Champagne.

And then there’s ribolla, which is known as rebula in Slovenia. In a hot year like 2022, it showed exactly why it belongs on these hillsides and mineral soils. “Rebula has no rivals across the border,” Simcic said. “Here it’s richer and fuller. In 2022 it was perfect – otherwise it often struggles to ripen. Climate change is helping, at least on that one front.”

While 2022 was warm and dry, 2023’s cooler, wetter conditions became a challenge-turned-asset for varieties like chardonnay. At Simcic, tougher conditions led to shorter macerations, resulting in an even more balanced style.

“There was more rain in 2023, yet the wines still kept their salinity,” Simcic said. “In some cases, we needed late harvests.” His Simčič Chardonnay Brda Opoka Jordano Cru 2023 shows tight-knit structure and refined texture with zesty, lingering acidity.

The challenges of 2023 show up elsewhere, too. At Movia, for instance, no veliko rebula – a wine built to age – was made.

Both producers see 2024 as promising, though frost at the beginning of season cut yields at Movia by 40 percent. “The vines gave very concentrated grapes,” said Kristancic, “and for the first time for our Ambra pinot grigio, we used whole clusters.”

2024 also saw heavy rains on the night of Nov. 16, triggering landslides. In some of Simcic’s celebrated vineyards, terraces collapsed and will need rebuilding.

When properly navigated, the region’s complex and extreme climate can create exceptional, memorable wine, as in 2021. This is the prime example now appearing in top-tier selections: wines with concentration, balance, complexity and depth.

The secret ingredient binding climate and grape is the soil, or “ponka” – a marl-rich schist.

“Ponka is low in available nitrogen, so the must tends to go reductive,” Kristancic explained. “The wines show that flinty, intensely mineral character that defines them.”

The celebrated wine of the trip was Kristancic's Movia Ribolla Goriška Brda Lunar 8 2021, which is produced only in magnum and left to age on its fine lees in bottle, without added sulfur, and not released in every vintage. It is focused yet openly oxidative in style, chalky and mineral-forward, with a firm, lemon-driven profile touched by coriander and angelica. The palate is immensely tasty  – full-bodied with crisp, well-knit acidity and faintly chewy tannins. Ripe and concentrated, yet fundamentally savory and long, this is a great white by any measure and should be decanted before drinking.

If Brda is Slovenia’s wine heart, Gredic hill is its inner sanctum, crowned by a stately castle beneath the Movia winery. It can rightly be called a grand cru of Brda – home to vines tended by Movia, Marjan Simcic, Dolfo and Klet Brda. According to Luka Ribolica, the winemaker at Klet, “it’s an open site facing the sea, with little rain and lots of ponka.”

One discovery from our visit were the wines of Sylvmann in Cuej. Italian winemaker Silvio Jermann started the project after selling a majority stake to Antinori in 2021. His new line of garage wines, fermented only in amphora with macerations lasting from four to 65 days, are sourced from breathtaking, wind-swept vineyards that promise minerality and freshness. And next to him, the new estate Berblut is already attracting attention with highly mineral rebulas.

The Simčič Brda Numerals One 2021, a blend of sauvignon vert and rebula, is another of the top wines we tasted. The nose is perfumed with elderflowers and coriander seeds, its mineral backbone showing graphite, apricots and yellow plums. Austere and deeply complex, it carries substantial weight and density, finishing with piercing length. It’s a powerful wine that still shows ample harmony.

Among the sparkling wines, the Medot Goriška Brda Cuvée Extra Brut is refined and focused. It shows a classic profile of brioche, wild strawberries, butter, quince and chalk. The palate is taut, engaging and precise, cutting sharply through its mineral core, with a lingering, toasted pine-nut finish.

The local cooperative Klet Brda demonstrated its ambitions with the Merlot Cabernet Franc Goriška Brda De Baguer Red 2019 – a spicy Bordeaux blend with restrained cassis, leather, graphite and tobacco leaf flavors. Focused and deep, it shows a cool-climate signature in its savory, medium-bodied and refreshing style. This is a wine that is more elegant than powerful.

The Visvik 2023 from Sylvmann in Cuej, the new project by Silvio Jermann, is a complex, layered and mineral white, offering flinty, apricots and pears on the nose, with elements of candied lemon, broom and fresh ferns. The texture is silky and weighted, umami-rich, closing with a slightly bitter, tannic texture.

Finally, Berblut’s Ribolla Goriška Brda Quisca Kalehe Vineyard 2024 shows a strikingly mineral interpretation of the grape, full of lime zest, grapefruit, white pepper and stone aromas. Slightly reductive now, yet more focused and elegant than earlier releases, it’s light-bodied but savory, zesty and steely. It’s a wine, and an estate, to watch.

– Aldo Fiordelli, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

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