Posestvo Bela Gora
About
Posestvo Bela gora (White hill estate) is a small family-owned vineyard and winery that is producing vibrant and authentic wines from Štajerska grape varieties. Vinum was introduced to this small estate when discovering that, Radojko Pelengic, the talented winemaker of Sanctum (and former assistant winemaker at Heaps Good Wine Co., under Nick Gee), also had a small family winery of his own along with his wife Martina, down the road in Dramlje. Rado and Martina produce a teeny amount of wine out of their small family winery, but the wines scream with expression, typicity and love.
Their small 1-hectare vineyard is planted on the hill, Bela gora, near the town of Dramlje in the region of Štajerska, northeastern Slovenia. The name of the settlement, which is also the name of the winery's white cuvee (Stilj), was changed from Šent Ilj (literally, 'Saint Giles') to Dramlje in 1955. Our cellar was built in 1951 a year after our vineyard was planted by our grandfather Franc Kačičnik, whose name is on the wine bottles today. Franc Kačičnik was a local constable and a prominent figure in the village. His portraits adorn the walls of the small cottage and estate and led to the inspiration behind the labels.
Martina and Radojko are the third generation of winemakers that took over the winery from Martina's parents. The vineyard is nowadays farmed practicing organic and, respecting the terroir, they produce natural wines with low intervention in the cellar. All fermentations are done with native yeasts, with only small amounts of sulfur additions done at bottling. Most of the work in the vineyard is done by hand as the vineyard was planted long ago with narrow spacing between the rows. The vineyard is planted with a lot of different varieties, among them Muscat, Sauvignon, and Blaufrankisch. The oldest plants are more than 70 years old as the vineyard was never replanted, which is extremely rare in Slovenia. Year by year was only replaced for the missing plants.
Wines
