The Habsburg port on the Adriatic, with Piazza Unita d'Italia opening straight onto the sea and the Miramare castle on its headland, reached from Brda in about an hour and a quarter.
Tip: The Karst villages on the way back pour Vitovska and Terrano, two grapes you will not meet in Brda, so build in a stop above the city.
The Slovenian capital is the country's shop window for its own wine, with a compact riverside centre, the castle above it and the open kitchen market on the Ljubljanica in summer.
Pours: Rebula, Slovenian sparkling wine, Refošk
Tip: If you are flying out of Ljubljana anyway, spend the last night there and buy the Brda bottles you did not have boot space for.
One town split by the post-war border and run as a single European Capital of Culture in 2025. It is the nearest place to Brda with a railway station, a hospital and a proper bar scene.
Pours: Rebula, Zelen and Pinela from the Vipava Valley, Friulian Friulano
Tip: The GO! 2025 programme has carried on into 2026 with cross-border events such as Gusti di Frontiera in late September, so check the calendar before you plan the day.
The Collio Goriziano DOC is the same range of hills under a different flag, fourth by planted area among the DOCs of Friuli Venezia Giulia, with more than 85 percent of its output in white grapes.
Pours: Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, Collio Bianco blends
Tip: Several Brda estates already farm on both sides of the line, so ask at your cellar in Ceglo or Plešivo which of their parcels sit in Italy and where the neighbours are.
A Lombard town on the Natisone with the Tempietto Longobardo, the Ponte del Diavolo, the National Archaeological Museum and the Christian Museum inside a compact walled centre.
Pours: Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, Refosco
Tip: Pair it with a lunch stop in the Valli del Natisone on the way back. The Ipogeo Celtico and the Casa Medioevale are five minutes apart in the old town.
The river that marks the eastern edge of Brda runs turquoise through a gorge country of First World War history, the Kobarid museum, the Tolmin gorges and the Kozjak waterfall.
Pours: Rebula, Local Tolmin and Kanal whites
Tip: Go in the morning and come back over the Kolovrat ridge for the view down onto the Brda terraces from above.
The other white wine valley of western Slovenia, an hour east of Brda, where a wind called the burja shapes the growing season and two local white varieties, Zelen and Pinela, are grown.
Pours: Zelen, Pinela, Malvazija
Tip: It is the natural second leg of a Primorska wine week: Brda for Rebula and skin contact, Vipava for Zelen and Pinela, an hour apart.