When I was looking for food places close to our hotel in Bled, I came across a location called “Wine Tasting Bled.” Since we only didn’t have that many free days in Slovenia, and because the wine tasting started at 8:30, which was doable for some of the weeknights, I really, really wanted to try this. So after one day where we weren’t too tired after the learning expedition activities, my friend and I went to try some wine!

The wine tasting took place in a wine cellar that’s over a hundred years old (it was apparently built in 1909) and to our surprise, we were the only two people there! We still got a platter of cured meats, cheeses, and bread with pumpkin seed oil, and honestly, I enjoyed the fact that we had a personal wine tasting session.

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Our sommelier was Boris and he was a hoot! Boris was clearly very enthusiastic about Slovenian wines, and as someone who gets very excited about tea, I get where he’s coming from. When you love something, you just want to share it with everyone, even if ‘everyone’ consists of two people who aren’t that familiar with wine.

I don’t want to spoil the wine tasting experience in case you decide to go for it, but some really cool stuff that I learnt include:

• Most wine in Slovenia is produced by families. Because family farms are smaller, about 85% of wine produced in Slovenia stays in Slovenia. And that’s a pity for those of us who don’t live in Slovenia because they have some excellent wines.
• One of the wines I really liked is called “Sipon”, which is apparently a corruption of the French phrase “C’est bon (It’s good)”. The Sipon we had was aged for a year in an oak barrel and it had the most amazing vanilla note that I’ve ever tasted in a wine!
• Speaking of delicious wines, Boris introduced to us the idea of “dangerous wines” – these are wines which taste delicious but are have a high alcohol content, so you may get drunk without even noticing it!
• Slovenia has the oldest grapevine in the world (where grapes are still harvested, it’s not the first grapevine that was planted) and we got to drink a wine made from these grapes!

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it, but I’m pretty lightweight when it comes to alcohol and as it turns out, so is my friend. Luckily, the wine cellar was very, very close to the hotel so after the whole session was over, we managed to make our way back! Boris did offer to send us back, but I felt that the distance was so short, and Slovenia is generally a safe country, that it was unnecessary.

Although (or is it ‘because’?) I’m pretty much a wine noob, I enjoyed the session very much. I learnt a lot about wines and Slovenian wines, and they were all so delicious that I couldn’t stop myself from talking about it. And because I couldn’t stop talking about it, two friends who are much more familiar with wine decided to give the wine tasting a try and… they loved it too! So I’m pretty sure that as long as you enjoy wine, you’ll enjoy this wine tasting session in Bled.

It’s been taking me a long time to write these Slovenia travel posts – mostly because school is so busy that I’m not even reading that much, let alone writing anything – but I do have one more experience that I want to share – my first ebike tour, so stay tuned for that!