Slovenian wines
Slovenian, an old country which is producing wine from a century ago.
Well known for the long maceration with the skin contact in white grapes varieties, this practice has been made to give the wines characteristic and personality; most of the artisan think that in the skin there is the expression of the soil "Terroir". The protein on skin as anthocyanis, flavonoids and catechin acting as powerful antioxidants part of the family of tannins; also the tannins are a natural preservative in wine.
In this part of the world most of the producers have great respect of the soil and a excellent ethic, they all working in organic farming so their wine are quite healthy but a bit different from the conventional winemaking, so sometimes you'll find unpleasant odor and excess of "volatile" (level of acetic acid present in a wine).
Two of the wines I liked in my drinking time:
Branko & Vasja Cotar from Komen in Gorjansko - i had the Drazna from 05, red made with Terrano grapes varieties, an indigenous varieties from Slovenian, part of the family of Refosco del Penducolo Rosso most popular in Friuli region in Italy, Merlot and Cabernet.
The wine was red purple not deeply in colour, the bouquet focused on red fruit and earthiness as dirty mushroom some smokiness, there was nice length and lovely structure - a medium body red.
In the spring 2011 Cotar and other 3 producers established a cooperative called Simbiosa in the mean to respect the wines in a natural manner with Mlecnik, Klinec and Terpin in Italy.
http://www.simbiosa.it

The second wine was from Grace winery made with Rebula grape also called in Italy Ribolla from 09, i don't have much information about this producer (was brought by friends of mine); however the wine was really good. Orange in color, the legs were beautiful, orange zest, candied almond, honeysuckle and bergamot were so pleasant on my nose. Palate showed roundness and velvety characteristic, precise and  long finish - we had it with middle east food, was awesome.





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