Primorska’s rocky, rainy, northernmost wine region borders––and shares an appellation, in some spots––with the Italian region of Friuli. Italian-Slovenian blood runs deep (it was only in the last century that this wine region was separated by a national boundary, after all), from the grapes selected to local tastes.

Wines typically include Ribolla Gialla, the stand-out grape of the region, Sauvignon Blanc, Barbera, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Pinot Noir; they’re vibrant with acidity and bursting with floral and fruit aromas, and occasionally an earthiness that innovative winemakers exploit by making complex and wildly aromatic “orange” wines with extended skin and lees contact and amphora or Slovenian oak aging.