Frelih Wines
Šentrupert, Slovenia (Dolenjska)
The Frelih family has made wine above Šentrupert since 1892, and they've long been Dolenjska's quiet rule-breakers — theirs was the first cviček bottled seriously, and the first ever entered and awarded at Decanter in London.
Today the winery is run by two Veronikas, mother and daughter, and it's the younger Veronika steering the cellar. Her training is serious: agronomy in Ljubljana, then two years of postgraduate study in Pessac, in the heart of Bordeaux. She came home with sharpened instincts and clear priorities — the family's 23,000 vines went organic, and sparkling wine moved to the center of the house, now the majority of everything they make.
Her sparkling wines, peninas in Slovenian, are classic method through and through: hand-picked fruit, second fermentation in bottle, long months on the lees. The most distinctive bottlings skip disgorgement entirely — the wines stay on their yeast, poured cloudy or upright, with the bready depth and gentle texture that only time on the lees can give. The base material is pure Dolenjska: Žermetna Črnina (Black Velvet), Modra Frankinja, Zeleni Silvanec, and Pinot, all carrying the region's bright, cool-climate acidity that sparkling wine dreams of.
The cellar sits in the shadow of Šentrupert's 500-year-old Gothic church, a gentle reminder of the family's past, but Veronika's wines look forward: precise, bone-dry, organically grown bubbles from a region nobody saw coming — made by a winemaker everybody soon will.
IMPORTED SELECTIONS
Classic Method Non-Disgorged Rosé
Classic Method Non-Disgorged White