2018 | Suklje | Modra Frankinja Blaufrankisch

The nose offers an intertwining of blueberry and blackberry aromas and a typical spiciness. The wine is medium-bodied, fruity, supported by gentle tannins.

Producer Information

The modern history of Šuklje begins when Guillaume Antalick, a tall French guy with a PhD in enology from Bordeaux University heads to do a post-doc in Stellenbosch, South Africa. There he meets Katje Šuklje whose parents Jože and Tatjana have a vineyard and winery in Metlika. The two fall in love and end up going to Australia to work together at Wagga Wagga (Charles Sturt University). Eventually, they moved back to Metlika and took jobs with local research institutes, but also got involved with Katja’s family winery, at the same time as beginning a family together. The winery is small, but by the standards of the region it’s a good size, and Jože was one of the first in the region to make winegrowing his main activity. During the years of socialism, everyone tended to do a bit of everything when it came to agriculture. Small was good, and it wasn’t possible to be an independent winemaker. Things progressed and he built the current cellar in 2000. The slightly warmer, more continental climate here in the east of the country means that red wines predominate, and it’s Blaufrankisch, known here as Modra Frankinja, that is the key variety. Of the regions 400 hectares, 120 are Blaufrankisch. Since 2016, Guillaume, Katja and her brother Matija have taken this winery to a new level, working on the vineyards (no herbicides are used and they are on the conversion path to organics) and also using their scientific expertise in the winery. They have also begun a planting project, too. Šuklje is unusual in the region in that it’s working with clay/limestone-based soils. Most of the other vineyards here share a soil type in common with most of Slovenia, which is called Opoka (also known as Flysch). It’s a mixed sedimentary soil that’s mostly based on sandstone, although it can be mixed with limestone too.

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