New in Town: Movia Winery
Slovenia, Goriska Brda
Movia is more than a mere wine label, it is a way of life, life in all its purity of nature and sincerity of the author. Movia is a brand beyond time, a mark of standards surpassed as sought by so many wine connoisseurs around the world. From light classics, through a range of mature wines with good ageing potential, to one-offs second to none other in the world. All of Movia’s wines are natural wines.
The Estate
The estate extends over 22 hectares of land, about half of which lie on the Italian side of the Goriska Brda. Movia is a family estate with its main house in Ceglo, covering 22 hectares of vineyards including many of the best parcels in the borderland between Slovenia (ZGP Brda) and Italy (DOC Collio). On the world market today, Movia is a synonym for wines with impressive character and extraordinary elegance. They offer a glimpse into the noblest of viticultural traditions, often crossing the line of generally accepted and applicable oenological practices.
Winemaking
The wines were given time to reach full maturity in their home cellar and are only released onto the market several years following their vintage. Succinctly put, they revived pre-classical vinification procedures that did not revert to sugar for re-fermentation in the bottle and left the satisfaction of degorging the wine, usually experienced only by cellar masters, to the consumer.
Movia wines are produced with the highest measure of respect towards nature, no fining, no filtration. They require appropriate storage. The range of wines is completed by the dried grape wine Esenca, flanked by the selection of artisanal grappas.
Nevertheless, they did not forget Nature’s bequest: be genuine, respect Mother Earth and do not stand in its way. That is why Movia is more than merely a brand. It is nature’s agent in your wine glass, in you.
A Look Back in Time
Wine production has been present in the lands of present-day Slovenia since the presence of Illyric and Celtic populations. Generations of steadfast fighters sculpted by years of labor in the bosom of the earth have left their mark. Anyone is always welcome if only too much work isn’t beckoning. Alongside nature, tradition also holds its firm homestead in Brda. Vintner families’ trace their connection with wine back to the mid eighteenth century. In the mid 1800s many estates purveyed their wines to the Viennese imperial court, the Pope in Rome, to Ljubljana and Udine.
After World War II the vineyards remained in the family’s hands, allowing the continuation of this tradition in the Brda. The wine’s quality allowed the Kristančič family to become exclusive suppliers of wine for state protocol events in the former SFR Yugoslavia in 1958. In keeping with the family’s decades of winemaking endeavour, Aleš honed his skills in Bordeaux and in Burgundy, returning back home with the idea of a completely different concept of wine production, enriched with new knowledge of modern winemaking and marketing concepts. It was on the basis of these new ideas that the historical breakthrough of Slovenian wines began. The Movia and Vila Marija brands are among the most important and most frequently awarded wines in South-Eastern Europe.
The most important, decisive investment for any wine producer is his vineyard. A good wine cellar, barrels, technique and technology only require knowledge. A good vineyard, however, requires more, its demands time. It requires patient waiting for the vineyard to mature, to acquire wisdom and to start its coexistence with the vintner and begin developing its own style and the Kristančič family really understood this.
