Maribor
Our first few days on the trail took us a bit longer than expected. But as important as it is to have an itinerary going in, it’s also been fabulous to have a “yes man” attitude and make adjustments along the way!
More on these in my next post—which cover our unexpectedly long time in Pohorje. Before diving fully into trail content I wanted to share a bit about our time in Maribor.
Along with being where the SMT begins, Maribor is Slovenia’s second largest city and is home to the oldest vine in the world according to the Guinness book of world records. The old vine was planted during the Middle Ages over 400 years ago. It’s still producing grapes, though bottles are reserved for Slovenian government officials, diplomats, and other very important people (weirdly we weren’t included in this category). Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the vine because Old Vine House, the vine’s current home, is under renovation until November. Being only a couple days into the trip, our packs were weighing heavy on us and traipsing across town to see if we could see the vine from a distance was completely out of the question. Instead, we got to see a couple of bottles from the old vine on our tour of Vinag wine cellar.
Wine making has served as an important part of life throughout Slovenian history. It began in the 4th century when the practice was introduced by Celtic and Illyrian tribes in the 4th century.
Wine played an important commercial role throughout Slovenia, particularly in the Štajerska region where Maribor is located. Most of Slovenia was under Hapsburg rule from the 14th to the 20th century. Under Hapsburg rule, wine making was a source of Maribor’s initial prosperity and eventual decline in the 18th century due to intense competition from Ptuj, a nearby town in the region. This period is known as the Maribor-Ptuj wine wars, which (other than having an epic name) went on for over 200 years, demonstrating just how important wine was to Slovenia’s economy back then.
Today, Maribor is the capital of the Štajerska wine region, which is responsible for forty percent of Slovenia’s wine output. The region is famous for its sparking white wines and Austrian-influenced Rieslings.
Vinag, the winery we toured, has been around since 1847 and is one of the largest underground wine tunnels in all of Europe. It was combined with the cellar of a brewery after World War II and has 2.1 km of underground passages. It was also one of the largest wine exporters when Slovenia was part of the former Republic of Yugoslavia.
Though we are more red than white wine people, making the tasting a bit challenging, it was super interesting to learn about the winery’s history and storage methods. One of its coolest attractions was its wine Archive, which holds 85,000 bottles of high quality archival wine.
Tunnels of retired wine barrels.
Oak barrels for aging Chardonnay.
Climate controlled room to keep constant humidity in the wine cellar. It takes a bit of squirming to get inside. Nick, the tallest person on our tour, was the only person to volunteer and fortunately didn’t get stuck on his way in (or worse) on his way out!
Looking into Vinag’s wine archive. The most popular bottles last year were from 1973, and generally coincide with 50 year anniversaries.