The inhabitants of Planina, the village lying at an altitude of 200 metres, are masters of winemaking. They proudly offered their masterpieces of wine to visitors from throughout Slovenia.
This time, ‘the mother of all winds’ or the Vipava bora, which whips the Planina canes and blows whistling around the homesteads, has slightly abated. However, because of winter temperature (about 0°C), thirsty visitors quickly moved to the haven of wine cellars. The arched cellars which are cut through solid rock revived. The householders poured wine from casks, the housewives sliced local delicacies, and soon everybody fell into a pleasant conversation. The conversation, the song and, above all, the ode to the queen of Planina’s wines Pinela resounded through the wine village, the patron saint of which is St Cantius.
Planina is the capital of Pinela
The Planina winegrowers make different kinds of wine. Nine make up a majority of wines produced there. However, the most important are three indigenous wines: Rebula, Zelen and Pinela, which is a leader. In fact, Planina is the capital of Pinela, the grape variety which, besides Rebula, best tolerates draught and barren marl soils. Above all, it defies the bora, as it ‘loves’ open and airy positions. Pinela produced in Planina accounts for one fifth of all Pinela made in the Vipava region. Every year on Easter Monday, the locals pay homage to this indigenous wine variety, when a special ‘Gathering with Pinela’ takes place.
The Roman grapevine in Vine
The presence of wine in Planina dates back to Roman times. Legend has it that it was the Romans who planted the first grapevine on the hillside of the Vipava Valley – well, in the hamlet of Vine, to be precise, which lies on the southern side of the hill, below the little St Paul’s church. Hence, the hamlet was named after wine. Over thousands of years, vineyards have been planted on the Planina slopes, from the valley bottom and the Vipava River, to a small hill of Ostri vrh (422 metres above Planina). The grapevines stand in rows like soldiers and are arranged in steep terraces, protected by ‘dry walls’ or stone fences.
In the village of Planina, there are 45 wine farms, which grow grapes on approximately 80,000 square metres (200 acres) of vineyards. The first teacher of Planina’s wine masters was Matija Vertovec (1784–1851), who was born in the nearby village of Šmarje in the Vipava region. He was a priest who wrote the first reference book on wine, the well-known ‘Vinoreja’ (The Viniculture). While working as a priest in Planina, he diligently taught the locals of ‘prudent’ viniculture. In memory of him, every year the Vertovec hike takes place across Planina.
‘Grampampoli’ and fig coffee
Although the winemakers of Planina invite everyone for tastings, each householder has a drink he serves merely to men. This is the famous Planina ‘grampampoli’, which was mostly prepared for New Year’s Eve. It’s a real ‘drinking bomb’ that can hit also the strongest ones. It’s prepared by cooking a litre of schnapps (mostly marc), a litre of good wine and a kilogram of sugar. This is a brew drunk only by men while playing an obligatory game of cards.
A specialty of the Planina housewifes is fig coffee or ‘figov kafe’ which replaced real coffee in times of shortage. It tastes like real coffee, perhaps it just smells slightly of too much roasted real coffee beans. However, it tastes exceptionally sweet. When the housewives earned some money from selling milk, they afforded real coffee, which they roasted and made only for women’s gatherings. And when the men played cards and sipped ‘grampampoli’, they served them ‘figov kafe’.
Mojca Dumančič, TV Slovenija; translated by D. M.
Photo: Mojca Dumančič
