13 editor-picked Sauvignonasse producers across 1 region.
A guide to Sauvignonasse worth seeking out, by region. We list the estates, how each region expresses the grape, and the bottles that show it best.
Medana estate running an inn and an organic cellar on the same site since 1918. The wines are long skin-contact whites, among them Ortodox, Quela and a bottling of the local Verduc.
Tip: The kitchen keeps unusual hours: open Monday and Saturday midday, closed Tuesday to Thursday, dinner Friday and Saturday.
Šlovrenc estate where the whites take 7 to 60 days on skins and then two to three years in 225 litre French oak. The Amfora blends Rebula, Malvazija and Sauvignonasse.
Tip: Restaurant and rooms share the estate. Dinner runs Tuesday to Saturday from 18:30, with a Saturday lunch service, and booking is required.
The Dobrovo cooperative cellar, built in 1957 and owned outright by its members. It works 1,400 hectares of vineyard for 400 grower families and ships to 26 countries.
Tip: A self-guided tasting of 24 samples costs 20 euros and runs weekday afternoons at 13:00 or 14:30, with a guided cellar walk at 14:30.
Neblo farm run by Franc and Borut Kocijančič on seven hectares at 75 to 160 metres, mostly terraced. Output is about 50,000 bottles from two red and six white varieties.
Tip: The Brjač vineyard is picked last, in the final days of October, and feeds the Merlot Brjač bottling.
Plešivo family farm working nine hectares on both sides of the border, with spontaneous ferments and macerations and a stated focus on Rebula, Sauvignonasse and Malvazija.
Tip: The tasting room seats twelve indoors and ten outside, so groups need to call ahead rather than turn up.
Snežatno farm-stay with an organic cellar, a kitchen built on Brda dishes and eight guest rooms named after the grape varieties grown on the property.
Tip: Both the tasting and dinner need booking in advance, and vegetarian or vegan meals can be arranged the same way.
Kozana cellar with organic growing and two guest rooms, looking north across the hills from Gredič to Šmartno. Tastings run at five or ten wines with local snacks.
Tip: Only two double rooms, with a two-night minimum from May to September, so book well before harvest season.
Vipolže farm that dates its winegrowing to 1923, when Valentin Keber and Andrej Benedetič bought the Brgolišče plot. Ten hectares now sit across twelve separate sites.
Tip: Cherries and olive oil are sold alongside the wine, and the tasting hall looks straight out over the hills.
Former Thurn-Taxis farm at Pristavo, now the Erzetič family's, farming 15 hectares of terraced marl. The Donna Regina traditional-method sparkling has been made since 1994.
Tip: The estate dates its winegrowing to 1767 and leans on the local trio of Rebula, Sauvignonasse and Malvazija.
Tastings at the Štekar family farm above Snežatno, poured with plates built from the kitchen garden, the house chickens and their own cured meats.
Tip: Slots run Thursday to Saturday between 16:00 and 19:00 and have to be booked ahead.
Small room at the Blažič farm on the border at Plešivo, pouring the spontaneously fermented and macerated whites built on Rebula, Sauvignonasse and Malvazija.
Tip: Twelve seats indoors and ten outside, so groups have to call ahead rather than turn up.
The old Brda white that Italy long called Tocai, bottled dry and fruit-scented with an almond note through the finish. Same price as the entry Rebula.
Tip: Sauvignonasse is one of the region's defining whites and hard to find outside it. Buy two, the second one keeps.
The cooperative's amber wine, blended from the three Brda whites at 12.5 percent: Rebula twelve months on skins in wood, Sauvignonasse a month in steel, Sivi Pinot three days in amphora.
Tip: Taste this before spending forty euros on a small-estate amber wine. Each variety is fermented separately and the Rebula does the long maceration on its own.
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