Slovenian Wine - Burja

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I'm your host, Matthew Horky. Well, we're here in Belgrade, Serbia. And actually, it's so funny because last night we watched the 2000, what year is this now? 2017 Eurobasket Final. It was Slovenia versus Serbia. Good game, but Slovenia actually prevailed. And ironically, we were in Slovenia last month tasting wines, including tasting wines from this producer. I have to say, we visit about nine producers in a week in Western Slovenia, in Gornjiška Borda, Vipava Valley. I wish we had a heck of a lot more time because we tasted wines from this producer. I did not get it. We did not get a chance to visit them, but we were quite impressed. This is Burja. This is their entry level Petit Burja Zelen from 2014. This is from the Vipava Valley. Burja is eco or organic certified. I think they're also working on their Demeter or biodynamic certificate. This, for an entry level wine, we tasted three or four of their wines, and I was really impressed. I found a couple of these in Belgrade, and they said they were the last bottles they had. I took them all. There was only three bottles left. To me, this smelled almost like an aged Riesling. What would you say about that on the palate? The nose smells a bit like Riesling because of the petrol nose, but on the palate, it's much less fruit, a lot more mineral, lemon. Well, besides lemon, there's hardly any other fruit. More mineral driven with very lovely acidity. Yeah, I agree 100%. It was very mineral driven. Tons of petrol. Had some apple on the nose, but the palate, it tasted more mineral than fruit. This was macerated for two days on the skins, so for people that are just wanting to check out what amber wines, orange wines are all about, this might be a good option because it still drinks like a familiar, fresh white wine with some age. I was really impressed. I really liked Berdia's Pinot Noir as well. We also tasted a field blend from them that had, I think, Welsh Riesling, Zelen, and maybe Reboula in it. I'll put the link to our tasting article in the notes. Anything else you want to add about Berdia? I think all the wines that we tasted, like you said, they're all good. It really encourages you to want to try more. What's interesting is, since we didn't visit them that well in Slovenia, a couple of people online actually reached out to us and said, hey, did you go to Brugia? So I'm pretty sure a lot of people are impressed by their wine. Yeah, and it's in a beautiful location. I agree 100%. The Vipava Valley, it's this corridor that connects Italy into Central and Eastern Europe. Beautiful views. They have a long history of winemaking there. We'll have to go back and check them out. I'm really impressed. So guys, if you like this video, check out our tasting article. I'll put it in the description box. And please subscribe to our YouTube channel. I will see you in the next episode.