Pasji Rep
Orehovica, Slovenia (Vipava Valley)
Pasji Rep — "dog's tail," named for the curl of the little valley and the stream that runs through it — is one of the oldest vineyard sites in the Vipava Valley, with plantings documented back to 1476. Once, every household in the area farmed a parcel here. Today, barely a tenth of those famous vineyards survive — and the Premrn family farms seven of the ten remaining hectares, saved from abandonment when Samo's father Franc replanted Zelen in the 1980s at a moment when the grape was nearly extinct.
Samo Premrn has taken that inheritance and sharpened it. Under his direction the estate went fully biodynamic — Demeter certified — with every task done by hand, native-yeast fermentations, and nothing added in the cellar. His style is unmistakable: precise, mineral, built on freshness and elegance rather than weight, from vines on flysch soils scrubbed daily by the bora wind. Around 30,000 bottles a year, every one of them food-driven.
Zelen remains the heart of the house: notoriously difficult to grow, found nowhere else on earth, and in Samo's hands arguably at its finest — delicately aromatic, taut, and saline. Around it come Malvazija, Rebula, and a Pinot Noir from the valley's cool slopes that many of his peers consider the best in the region — plus a Merlot made only in years that earn it.
IMPORTED SELECTIONS
Jebatschin
Malvazija