If you’ve followed me for a while, you know how much my wine choices are influenced by my shopping and wine class experiences at Collier’s of Centreville. One of the classes held by the shop this past summer was an invitational during which three presenters prepared food for the attendees, while the shop owner, Linda Collier, chose wines to pair with them. I was one of the invited presenters.
The Student Becomes the Teacher
When I knew I was going to prepare food for the class, I decided pulled pork would be the easiest for that number of people. After my July 4 cook, I decided that was the style I was going with. I knew the tangy, vinegar-based Carolina sauce would be a hit with this crowd vs. a traditional, tomato-based sauce… and I was correct.
The class was a lot of fun and the response to the pulled pork in this unique, untraditional sauce was extremely positive. I also prepared a bonus treat – smoked chocolate bread pudding. Not to toot my own horn, but I was a crowd favorite that night.
After the class, Linda Collier presented my then-fiancee, now wife, a bottle she thought would go perfectly with the dish and invited us to try it at some point. That wine was the 2020 Bajta Rosé Haloze Pet Nat from Kobal Wines.
Everything about it was intriguing, from the design of the label, the bottle-cap-esque seal, and the cloudiness of the wine itself. So it didn’t take too long before we decided to do an encore of the July 4 pulled pork sandwich – we made it part of our Labor Day weekend menu.
Rather than going through the cook all over again, check out my previous post about this dish and let’s fast forward to the pairing partner for my barbecue treat.
The Wine: 2020 Kobal Bajta Rosé Haloze Pet Nat
Like I said before, this is a unique rose, unlike most of the ones I’ve had in the past. I mean, look at it. Just the appearance makes you want to grab it off the shelf, chill it in the fridge, and open it up at the first opportunity.
The first thing that jumped out when we sipped for the first time is the wine had some structure to it. The viscosity was obvious and made the wine feel substantial while providing that refreshment we enjoy from our roses. The cloudy appearance should have been the first clue to it having a bit more character.
On the nose, it was fresh, bright, and full of red berry aromas. The berry element continued on the palate accompanied by a fizz and creaminess that was refreshing.
The wine paired excellently with the sweet, tangy, and slightly hot flavors in the pork. It was a great recommendation by our friend at Collier’s and we’ll go back to this wine for other barbecue dishes.
Education time! The star of this wine is the Blaufrankisch grape – the red version of which was one of the varietals Linda paired with my dish for my presentation. Wine-Searcher.com describes the grape this way:
Blaufrankisch (aka Lemberger and Kékfrankos) is a black-skinned wine grape grown widely in Austria and Hungary, and to a lesser extent in neighboring Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Croatia.
Classic Austrian Blaufrankisch wines are intensely colored, medium-bodied reds with brooding, black-fruit flavors and a hint of peppery spice.
The Wine Region
This particular wine comes from Podravje, Slovenia, which is the country’s largest wine region and is located toward the eastern half. Wine-Searcher.com describes the terroir and climate of the area:
Over the last ten million years, the Pannonian Sea dried out completely, leaving the Pannonian Basin (also known as the Carpathian Basin) in its wake. The erosion that took place over this period of geomorphological activity created hundreds of small, rounded hills with mineral-rich, free-draining soils – ideal viticultural land. The non-carbonate rock on which these soils are based is unusual, and a significant part of the local terroir.
Podravje’s climate varies from the continental in the inland east to a sub-alpine continental in the west, where the land rises steeply towards the Kamnisko-Savinjeske Alps. The high number of sunshine hours that the regions receive during the growing seasons is excellent for those seeking optimal grape ripeness in Podravje’s vineyards.
The Winemaker
Now about the producer. Kobal Bajta is a small boutique winery from the northeast Slovenia, near the Austrian border in the Styria region. The particular town in which it’s located has a nearly 2000-year history of wine culture. They specialize in white wines, which suite our terroir. Producing Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Furmint, Yellow Muscat, Traminer, Chardonnay, Welschriesling, Blaufrankisch and also blends of white wines.
Amazingly, when I did a Google search for the Kobal Bajta winery, the link to the actual website was on the second page! When I visited the site, I found out how they approach winemaking:
Wines made with extended warm maceration of one month and fermentation with wild yeast. Still wines matured in French oak for two years. Raw cloudy wines, to show purity without human intervention during maturing. Pétillant-naturel or natural sparkling wines (pét-nat), made with one step fermentation, with endemic wild microflora at the end of fermentation. Bottled to keep the bubbles and finish fermentation in the bottle. The oldest approach to make sparkling wines.
I don’t try a lot of wines from Slovenia, but this experience shows that I’ve been missing out. The next time you’re in your local wine shop, see if they have a section dedicated to this lesser-known region.
Next time, I’m living high on the hog with some bone-in pork chops. Until then…
Cheers!