On Thursday, 29 November, the 2nd Festival of Live Wines took place in the Kucha bistro in Ljubljana hosting Alen Audič, the sommelier of Hiša Franko. Guests were treated with 10 glasses of selected wines from four Slovenian wine-growing districts presenting ten biodynamic winemakers and principles of biodynamic wine production.
The evening started with an hour-long workshop where Alen Audič and four winemakers gave presentation of live wine production and process of maceration and explained the impact of different factors on live wines in detail followed by the tasting of biodynamic wines of ten Slovenian winemakers.
In the homely ambient, guest could taste a wine of each winemaker, while winemakers in good spirits were happy to answer questions from visitors and shared their knowledge. The Kucha team created a pleasant atmosphere of the excellent festival by providing snacks, delicious vegan sourdough pizzas and live music.
Visitors learned about the Slovenian scene of sustainable production of live wines through wines and presentations of two winemakers from Karst, Marko Tavčar (Pietra) and Joško Renčel (Renčel), two representatives of Brda biodynamic winemakers, Andrej Kristančič (Nando) and Marko Reja (Reia) and three guests from the Štajerska Region, Radovan Šuman (Šuman), Božo Zorjan (Zorjan) and Aci Urbajs (Organic Anarchy), while the Vipava Valley was represented by three live wine specialists, Zmago Petrič (Guerila), Primož Lavrenčič (Burja) and Miha Batič (Batič). The latter also brought a bottled wine prepared for this very occasion.
Biodynamic wines
The work in a vineyard is carried out with the utmost respect for nature and vines, whereby a winemaker maintains a complete and absolute transparency of the procedure – without any insecticide sprays, interventions and additives, always in full harmony with natural processes in in terms of vine growing and wine production. Frequently, biodynamic winemakers in vineyards and wine cellars also try out unconventional approaches and methods, including spontaneous fermentation without any temperature control and different time of maceration which often provide surprising and extremely complex wines.
According to Martin Rojnik (director of the S.U.R.F Institute), such events are important since "Bringing natural wines and live foods together means to interconnect responsible practices. The Festival of Live Wines is a platform where, as an organiser, we wish to present advantages of fermentations, food without the addition of chemicals and point out to the importance of contact with natural environment, live soil," and in terms of the future plans of the festival added: "The Festival of Live Wines will become a major promotion platform for natural winemakers in the region and also a place for Slovenian winemakers living abroad to present themselves, and a tool to form education programmes and spread the culture of drinking natural wines."
Photos: Nejc Ketiš
