Why it matters
The producer
Borut Blažič farms at Plešivo in Goriška Brda, Slovenia's westernmost wine region, on a hillside that sits directly on the Slovenian-Italian border. The family has worked this land since 1890, when great-grandfather Peter Blažič bought a farm with old terraced vineyards from the departing Austria-Hungarian administration. Borut was the first family member to bottle wine under the family name, beginning in 1993 after a century of farming without an estate label. Three generations now live and work on the farm together.
The estate farms roughly 10 hectares of vineyards split across two countries: around two-thirds on the Slovenian side, one-third in Italy. That split is not a commercial arrangement but a geographic fact imposed by post-war borders. The primary white grapes are Rebula, the indigenous variety most associated with Brda, alongside Malvasia and Sauvignonasse, the aromatic grape called Jakot in Slovenia and Friulano across the border in Friuli. Production runs to 20,000 to 30,000 bottles per vintage.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Goriška Brda occupies the far west of Slovenia, sharing a geological formation and a hill system with the Italian Collio across the border. The terrain is steep, rolling, and south-facing in the best parcels, with clay-limestone soils that hold moisture through dry summers. The region has a Mediterranean-influenced climate moderated by Alpine air from the north, which keeps acidity alive in grapes that ripen fully. Rebula, the most widely planted variety in Brda, expresses that combination as a white wine with firm acidity, herbal lift, and enough body to carry extended skin contact without losing freshness. The Plešivo micro-location where the Blažič vineyards sit is among the warmer positions in Brda, close to the ridge line that marks the border with Italy.
Labels from this estate carry the Goriška Brda appellation designation. The cross-border vineyard holding means some fruit is grown in Italian territory, though the cellar and the name on the bottle are Slovenian.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The estate's roughly 10 hectares straddle the border, with the older terraced parcels providing Rebula and Sauvignonasse fruit for the flagship wines. Organic farming throughout means no synthetic inputs in the vineyard, which in a region with clay soils and humid summers requires careful canopy management to control disease pressure.
In the cellar, native yeasts drive all fermentations. Skin maceration runs at different lengths depending on the tier: five to seven days for the fresh whites, two to three weeks for the Selekcija range. The longer maceration extracts more tannin and colour from the skins, giving the wine a deeper amber hue, firmer grip on the palate, and the aromatic concentration associated with extended contact. The flagship Arancia is aged in oak for 42 months before release, then bottled unfined, unfiltered, and without added sulfites.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range is built around skin-macerated whites in two tiers, with the Arancia sitting above them as the extended-maceration, long-aged expression.
The fresh tier whites spend five to seven days on skins with native yeasts. At this length, skin contact adds colour moving toward gold-amber, a light tannic grip that firms the texture, and aromatic depth beyond what a conventionally pressed white would show, without overwhelming the primary fruit character of Rebula, Malvasia, or Sauvignonasse.