Decanter's Andrew Jefford on lessons from Simčič's Opoka Rebula, Slovenia

Jefford on Monday: Lessons the Bottles Taught Me

Some wines please; others both please and inform. The wines below are some of those which taught me most this year. I've quoted vintage and producer's name, but it's not always the named wine itself which matters so much as what that wine represents.

Bush vines in Swartland (Image: Andrew Jefford)

1) 2009 Opoka Rebula, Simčič, Slovenia
I criss-crossed the Italian/Slovenian border with two Dutch colleagues at fruit-blossom time, savouring the haunting strangeness of the grape the Slovenians call Rebula and the Italians Ribolla Gialla. The lesson: just how diverse the world of white wines in fact is. This is a comprehensively open, rich, softly chewy wine evoking an eerie world of allusions: cheese, meat, straw, mushrooms, yellow fruits, honey, umami. If you could drink the past, this is surely how it should taste.

 

Reproduced from Decanter.com 

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