The winery of Aleks Klinec is located in the hills of the Goriska Brda - the spectacularly beautiful, Slovenian part of the Collio. Here in Medana, a few hundred meters from the border with Italy, his family has been growing wine for over 100 years. 

In the past 20 years, Aleks has developed the winery into a fixed star in the viticultural sky - and in a very unpretentious way. Originally, he actually had a studies in Ljubljana in mind when he had to step in at home at a young age, he changed his opinion and instead became a winegrower. It quickly became clear to him that he wanted to take the traditional path of viticulture. And that meant: no chemistry in the vineyard, spontaneous fermentation, maceration of the white wines, long expansion and no additives in the basement, except for a minimal amount of sulfur. What a definition of natural wine reads from the textbook makes it clear that on this topic, tradition and avant -garde are enough. For example, the Klinec’s traditional idea also includes that animals at the winery are a matter of course: free -range pigs, donkeys, goats, ducks, chickens and horses stand in the way or make a good life in the meadows around the yard. 

The products that the vineyards in Medana are now in demand worldwide: the Aleks wines are considered milestones in the Slovenian viticulture in the restaurants & Weinbars in Tokyo, Milan, Paris or New York. 

And rightly so: the white wines-all with a rather short mash contact time-are impressively precisely precisely, catch the minerality of the Ponka floor (related to the Opok of Styria) and present themselves powerfully, elegant and complex. 

The few red wines in its range are independent interpretations from Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. They are deep and juicy and complex. All of this has its reason. Like hardly anyone else, Aleks has been devoting themselves to soil health and microbiological balance in their vineyards for many years. The vine cut is carefully and the yields are kept low. The care with which Aleks works in the vineyard continues in the basement. 

The wines are expanded with a lot of attention and time in traditional woods in the area: the white in used acacia and mulberry barrels. The red in cherry wood and Slavonian oak. If you should ever get into the corner, you must not miss the way to stop in the fantastic restaurant of the Klinec. Only open on weekends does the family present traditional specialties here that mostly come from their own production.