Brda (Goriška Brda)

Four bell towers on four ridges: Smartno, Medana, Slapnik, Kojsko. Brda's villages stand in a string of low hills west of Nova Gorica, packed tight against the Italian Collio on the far side of an invisible line, each with its handful of wineries, each looking south over vineyards that fold into orchards and back into vineyards again. The grape doing the talking is Rebula, Ribolla Gialla to the Italians. It has grown here since at least the thirteenth century and is now often made in the long-skin-contact orange style that won the region a small wave of international attention in the 2010s.

What keeps Brda interesting is that the wine is not a tourist economy bolted onto an old village. It is the village. Most cellars remain family-run. Tastings happen in courtyards where the work also happens, and the June cherry harvest draws families back from Ljubljana just as the grape harvest does in September. People carry the border lightly. Slovenian on one side, the Friulian Collio on the other, much the same cuisine, and a shared dialect of vine-talk.

Brda was named European Destination of Excellence in 2008 for the quality of its rural-tourism offer. The award matters less than what produced it. Farming here never stopped, and a generation of winemakers (Movia, Edi Simcic, Klinec, Kabaj just over the road) take their land seriously enough that visitors notice.

Two natural windows. Late April through June covers the cherry blossom and then the cherries themselves; the small cherry festival in Dobrovo in early June is one locals turn out for more than tourists do. September and the first half of October belong to the harvest, when cellars are noisy and tastings have to be booked. July and August come in warm but pleasant, and weekends fill with visitors driving in from Ljubljana, Trieste and Udine. In winter the cellars open by appointment and restaurants thin out, but the light over the hills is the cleanest of the year.

By train, the route is Ljubljana to Nova Gorica (around three hours on the regional line), which leaves you ten kilometres from the eastern edge of Brda. From Italy, Gorizia Centrale sits on the Venice–Trieste mainline, and the Slovenian Nova Gorica station shares the same square: Trg Evrope, or Piazzale della Transalpina, where the old border ran straight through the platform. From either station the Goriška LPP bus serves Smartno and Dobrovo a handful of times a day, sparsely on Sundays. Miss it and a taxi from Nova Gorica to Smartno costs around €20. A car makes cellar-hopping easier, but base yourself in one village and you can walk between neighbours without one.

Stay inside one of the villages, not along the valley road. Smartno is the most complete walled village in Brda and a sensible base; Belica and Hisa Marica (both check with the DMO for current operation) are long-standing guesthouses with their own kitchens and small cellars. San Martin, a slightly larger hotel on the edge of Smartno, is used to receiving wine-trade visitors. For something calmer, Vila Vipolze occupies a restored sixteenth-century villa with its own vineyard. The tourism office in Dobrovo (Hisa Kulture) keeps a current list of family rooms that never reach the booking platforms; in late spring and the harvest weeks, that list is the way in. The larger hotels in Nova Gorica suit a stopover and nothing more; Brda is a place to wake up in.

The Brda kitchen is recognisably Friulian in shape and Slovenian in seasoning. Pršut, the local dry-cured ham, related to but distinct from Italian prosciutto. Frico, a crisp wheel of melted cheese and potato. Gnocchi with plums in late summer, and the inevitable cherries in May and June. Gostilna Belica in Krasno earns its table with the kitchen and the family cellar. Klinec in Medana does a long lunch built around their own wines, and Pri Mostu in Dobrovo serves the simpler version. Begin with Rebula, dry and often skin-contact, then finish with a glass of the local cherry brandy. Several producers (Movia, Klinec, Kabaj, Edi Simcic) take tasting visits by appointment; booking 48 hours ahead is both the norm and a courtesy. If you can time a visit around the cherry festival in early June, do.

Walk between villages. The ridge path from Smartno to Slapnik takes a little over an hour and crosses three vineyards in production. Smartno is the tightest of the hill villages, a walled medieval core you can circle in twenty minutes; the small village museum there, the Brda House, sets out the wine history, and the village also keeps frescoes by the painter Tone Kralj. Climb the Gonjace observation tower above Kojsko for the view across both Brda and the Italian Collio: twenty-three metres of concrete raised in 1961 over a Second World War memorial, and the quickest way to read the shape of the whole region in one turn of the head. Opening for the museum is limited, so check current hours.

Dobrovo Castle anchors the middle of Brda, with a permanent collection of graphic work by the painter Zoran Music, first-floor rooms given over to the de Baguer family who lived here, and a Knights' Hall used for concerts and tastings. A few minutes away at Vipolze, the restored Renaissance villa takes contemporary exhibitions and events; a combined ticket often covers both, so ask at the tourist information office in Dobrovo. For the industrial scale as a counterweight to the family cellars, the Goriska Brda cooperative cellar at Dobrovo, founded in 1957 and the largest in Slovenia, runs guided tours that end in a tasting. Then go back to the small producers. One cellar before lunch, one after. That is the pace, and nothing here asks you to tick off a list.

Cross into Italy on foot at the Vipolze-San Floriano crossing, eat lunch in a Collio osteria, walk back. The Briska Cesta cycling route loops the hills on minor roads, and the Vipava valley to the south, with its Karst-edge wines, makes a sensible day trip. In Kojsko the church of the Holy Cross holds a Gothic winged altar more than five hundred years old. Medana has Alma's House, part gallery, part studio, part artists' residency, with exhibitions and literary evenings through the year. East towards Nova Gorica, Sabotin carries First World War fortifications and bunkers you can walk among. The fixture of the calendar is the cherry festival at Dobrovo Castle in June, now run across the border with Steverjan and San Floriano del Collio: stalls, tastings, olive-oil and ceramics workshops, several stages of music. Dates shift each year, so check before planning around it.

• Language: Slovenian; many winemakers also speak Italian, English and some German
• Currency: euro
• Plug: European type F/C
• Money: ATMs in Dobrovo and Smartno; Cards accepted at most cellars but cash is appreciated at the smaller producers and the village bars
• Mobile: Mobile coverage is good across the ridges and patchy in the lower vineyard rows
• Nearest hospital: Sempeter pri Gorici, about 30 minutes by road