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Warm air from the Adriatic Sea spreads across the Soca valley and stops on the sunny slopes of Trnovska
planota. On these sunny slopes lies a small, pleasant Slovenian village, Osek, where the Ipavec family
dwells.
For over 400 years the Ipavec family has been engaged in winegrowing and wine production. An important change happened in 1987, when owner Roman
Ipavec received a winery license, which also gave him permission to sell wine in bottles. Now we are a small family winery growing grapes, and
producing and bottling wines of the highest quality.
THE VINEYARDS
Our vineyards are spread out over 12 acres (8 hectares) of flysch and clay land in the western part
of the Vipava valley, where bright sunlight and rich soil make ideal conditions for the ripening of many
grape varieties. Our hard work and our hearts are devoted to wine growing, but without nature's
assistance and the guidance and knowledge of our forefathers the outcome would not be the same.
PRODUCING WINES
Every good winemaker knows how to estimate the quality of wine already in his vineyards. If each vine carries
only a few healthy and ripe clusters, the high quality of the future wine is unquestionable. A careful
winemaker pays attention to cleanness and precision during all winery tasks. Our winery is modern and
equipped with up-to-date tools and instruments but following the experiences of our forefathers there is
no room for modern chemistry extras.
At the end of August begins the early vintage time, for example pinot. Many relatives and friends come to
help us at grape harvest, which makes the work more joyful.
We gather the grapes in cases and then transport them to our winery, where we have a pneumatic wine press.
Grape juice that comes out of the press is immediately pumped to a tank. After a few days, when the
sediment sinks, wine juice, the upper three quarters of the grape juice, is decanted to another
tank.
This way we separate wine juice and the sediment. After wine juice is separated, we
add 4mg of sulfate to it and leave it so that the process of fermentation can start. During the process
of fermentation we observe the temperature and we cool the grape juice if the fermentation is too powerful.
Until St Martins the grape juice matures to wine. Afterwards we decant it and wait until it clears up
and calms down.
After a year and a day of maturing in tanks, we bottle our wine in Lepa Vida bottles. Lepa Vida bottles, are designed by
Slovenian designer Oskar Kogoj, and are dedicated to Slovenian woman and are exclusively used to bottle our wines.
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