The 25th Slovenian Wine Festival, the most prestigious event in the field of wine drinking culture in Slovenia, is coming to Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana. The Festival, which will take place on Thursday and Friday, November 16 and 17, from 4 to 9 p.m. in two halls of Cankarjev dom and 2 lecture halls, promises the presentation of more than 120 winemakers and culinary experts, 7 guided workshops, 2 workshops for winemakers and the opportunity to taste more than 550 wine samples. On the first day of the Festival, the official opening will take place, where the organizers and the committee will announce the winners of this year’s professional wine evaluation. Tickets are already on sale.
TASTING AT MORE THAN 120 SHOWROOMS
At the two-day wine Festival in Cankarjev dom, there will be more than 120 exhibition spaces, during which winemakers from all wine-growing regions of Slovenia will traditionally present themselves, and visitors will also have the opportunity to taste foreign wines, namely from Austria, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Italy, Catalonia, Slovenia and Serbia, which will be presented independently or in the framework of the Italian trade Agency salon, the Delegation of the Government of Catalonia for Central Europe, the Consortium of Vipava Valley winemakers and Salon Mabat.
GUIDED WORKSHOPS FOR VISITORS
As every year, the organizers organize top-class guided workshops at this year’s Festival, namely: The best-rated wines of the 25th Slovenian Wine Festival (led by: Prof. Dr. Tatjana Košmerl), Tasting and presentation of the wines of the new FOUCH winery (led by: Peter Knaflič, Tine Nusdorfer , Bruno Gaberšek), Wine tasting in the dark (lead: Valentin Bufolin, the best sommelier of Slovenia 2022, WSET 3, vice president of the Sommelier Association of Slovenia), Chocolate and wine (lead: Valentin Bufolin), Masterclass – Veneto with wines from the Masi winery (lead: Majda Debevc, WSET® LEVEL 3, WSET® LEVEL 2 PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATE IN SPIRIT and Aleksander Bohinc, level 3 sommelier, 7 x holder of gold awards at the Slovenian Sommelier Championship) and Arty Party painting and winking (led by: Vasja Stojanovski and Špela Vizjak). Tickets for the workshops are now available.
NEW: REMOTE DIGITAL WINE TASTING
A special novelty of this year’s Festival will be the presentation of the international project, Digital Wine Tasting, co-financed by the Erasmus+ program, which the creators, together with partners from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Switzerland and the Netherlands, developed into an online education for the ORGANIZATION OF REMOTE WINE TASTING. The free exclusive training is suitable for everyone – both winemakers and sommeliers as well as visitors, students or just food and wine lovers. The seminar, which
also offers a certificate at the end, will take place on Friday, November 17 at 3 p.m. in hall M1, and is being prepared by BIC Ljubljana.
EVALUATION OF FESTIVAL WINES
Again this year, the Festival evaluation of the submitted wine samples took place. All participating winemakers were able to submit their wines, which they will present at the festival, to the festival evaluation, which was carried out before the festival by an expert committee guided by prof. dr. Tatjana Košmerl.
As part of the expert evaluation for the 25th Slovenian Wine Festival, which took place on November 2 and 3, 2023, the 7-member committee was entrusted with 147 samples, 37 samples more than last year. Among all the samples, the expert panel evaluated 20 high-quality sparkling white wines, 3 sparkling rosé wines, 61 dry still whites, 11 still whites with residual sugar, 2 samples of reddish wines and 46 samples of still reds.
The average score of this year’s evaluated samples was 84.4±1.7 points, which is higher and gratifyingly with a smaller standard deviation.
The winners of this year’s evaluation of festival wines in each category will be announced on the first day of the festival, namely on November 16 at 4 p.m. in the Great Reception Hall of Cankarjev dom.
BEING CLEVER WHEN IT COMES TO GETTING YOUR WINES TO THE UK MARKET
From the very beginning, the organizers of the festival have tried to offer winemakers not only a place to present their wines to lovers of the noble drop, but also a place for new business partnerships and new sales channels. In addition to the Remote Tastings seminar, this time they present ways to penetrate the English market, which was created as a continuation of last year’s successful presentation of penetration on the American market. A presentation on UK sales and export opportunities will be presented by Glass of Bubbly founder Christopher Walkey, and the event will take place on Thursday 16 November at 2.45pm in lecture room M3/M4.
SAFE WAY HOME FROM THE FESTIVAL
Even during the Slovenian Wine Festival, the moderators of the Zavod varna pot will warn visitors about the importance of a safe way home. Their advice is that before leaving, we should think about how we or our friends will get home as safely as possible, and that we should find the most suitable or an alternative mode of transport – a person who has not drunk alcohol, public transport or a taxi. Moderators of the Zavod Varna pot will be available to take the alcohol test or psychophysical abilities and checking if you are within the permitted alcohol level limit of 0.24 mg/l and advising you if you can and how to safely participate in traffic. Let Čista nula čista vest (Clean Zero Clean Conscience) be your friend on the roads. Let’s do our part to make Vision ZERO a reality – every one of us counts.
TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE!
Tickets for entry to the festival and workshops are already available via the festival website, otherwise they will also be available at the box office on the day of the festival.
More about the event and participants on the website Slovenski festival vin, Facebook and Instragram profile.
The event is part of the programme NOVEMBER GOURMET LJUBLJANA
Organizer of the Slovenian Wine Festival – Proevent d.o.o.
