The number of such festivals is growing every year, but obviously the interest of the wide public in wine and good food is growing as well, considering the crowd which gathered on Friday, the first day of the two-day festival. It seems that the 19-year old Slovenian Wine Festival is in no danger of losing its audience due to large competition; the participants and the visitors praise its tradition, its influence on raising the culture of drinking (also by workshops), and quite consistent high-quality offer.
And although not all the best participated, and the festival was oriented towards mostly conventional types of wines, we had the opportunity to taste some really exceptional wines, and some of the wines which this year received international praise - e.g. Jakončič, who won two gold Decanter medals, and Veralda's Istrian, the Decanter best graded red varietal wine in the world.
The professional jury had graded all the samples before the beginning of the festival, and awarded Radgona's golden sparkling wine Zlata radgonska penina Selection 2012, Istenič's Prestige extra brut 2011, Sanabor sparkling wine Floridia 2012, Rojac's malvasia maceracija 2013, Sirk's Pinot white 2015, Bizjak's Rebula R, Italian Riesling – laški rizling selection 2011 from Kmetijska zadruga Krško, Pullus 777 2015 from Ptuj Cellar, Kupljen's Šipon 2008, Krapež's Merlot 2011, Bris's Barbera 2011, and Bovins A'Gjupka 2012.
Cooking in pairs
This year as well the Wine Festival was accompanied by the Culinary Festival with a bit shorter tradition of nine years, every time joined by a number of the best chefs of the country. This year the concept was somewhat altered, as coupons were available for the visitors for tasting dishes, and the chefs cooked live, in pairs, at the so-called Theatre of tastes - Luka Košir (Grič) thus joined forces with Tomaž Bevčič (Rizibizi) for two meat dishes - the first being bull roasted in hay charcoal, and the second Patanegra cheeks cooked in red wine, accompanied by Aleksander from the Macedonian Bovin cellar.
Desserts were created by Naser Gashi (La Ganache) and Siniša Borič (Restavracija 1552), and the awarded Kupljen Šipon was served.
On Saturday Janez Bratovž (JB) brought his Croatian colleagues Marko Palfi (Mundoaka, Čakovec) and Jeffrey Vello (Portrait, Dubrovnik) for "pig in three different manners", and cooked dinner in his JB restaurant with their help: Bratovž's son-in-law Jure Štekar took care of the wine (Rebula 2015).
For the last festival event Jorg Zupan, who is creating at the newest Ljubljana acquisition, Atelje (former Smrekarjev hram), and the master from the Styria region Marko Pavčnik (Pavus, Laško), were invited. Zupan proved himself with the trout filet with puree made of baked topinambur, and black garlic jelly, while Pavčnik sailed into Asian waters with his trout, and served smoked trout in beer ponzu with radish and trout caviar. Both fish dishes were served with Prestige extra brut 2011 by Istenič.
