But at least as interesting is what’s happening today. Contemporary Slovenia’s style of weirdo winemaking is alive and well in Styria. These days, the most famous weirdo wine is probably pét-nat, a fashionable abbreviation for a fashionable French style of winemaking, pétillant naturel.
But more than that, the passionate winemakers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, cooks and other hosts give the region its distinctive hospitality. After all, drinking wine from even the most fantastic bottle at home is never the same as enjoying it the place where it’s made with the people who made it.
Kordiš sometimes describes Slovenia as “shaped like a chicken,” with Styria as the neck. It’s part of the Podravska wine region, where the wines reflect the German influence that the area has often fallen under. One of the most common—and confusing—varieties is what servers kept calling Welschriesling. The variety is unrelated to Rhine riesling—and unrelated to Wales—and produces neutral, light and crisp white wines.
(Language tends to get messy in this highly multilingual part of the world; those servers were using a German term, the Slovenian name is Laški rizling and there’s no English version.)
Slovenia is riding high on the funky wine trend, producing orange wines, pét-nats and other low-intervention bottles since the 1990s. Now those vintages are in-demand, showing up on the lists of some of the world’s top restaurants and edgiest natural wine bars. And more and more people who visit Slovenia want to see where it’s made.
