Vintner Jakončič wins wine jackpot on Decanter

12. junij 2016 ob 8.52 • Dobrovo v Brdih - MMC RTV SLO

Aljoša Jakončič: "Globalisation has brought numerous products. When I was a child, a banana meant something special to me. It was very rare to have it. Nowadays, however, it is just another fruit. And I would give anything to get this feeling back, how happy I was as a child when eating a banana. That’s how special it was to me. And that's how some people feel when it comes to wine. They are also willing to pay more for getting this feeling back.” Photo: Personal archive of Aljoša Jakončič

“Rebula, a grape variety of Ribolla from the region of Goriška brda, has always been considered as somewhat inferior. It takes quite some effort to change this mentality and spread the awareness that this is actually excellent wine and an extraordinary grape. We, the locals from Brda, have always believed in Rebula, respected it and invested quite a few years of work to bring it to perfection and obtain the quality we had desired, so as to build the recognition it has today at the international level.”

In the world of wine, Decanter’s assessment of wine samples is renowned as one of the world’s most prestigious competitions, and most certainly ranks as Europe’s top contest. The assessment is held in London every year. 244 strict expert judges were selected for this year’s expert jury, including 69 “Masters of wine”. More than 16,000 samples from all parts of the world had been submitted for assessment and put into adequate categories.

Besides a mention in the American magazines Spectator and Wine & Spirits Magazine as well as a few other publications, the recognition awarded at such competitions – with samples from across the globe being assessed by the strictest of wine connoisseurs – is a great honour and accomplishment for any vintner. Slovenian vintners have built quite a reputation at numerous international wine competitions in the past few years, culminating in the success of vintner Jakončič from Kozana in the Brda region, who won the so-called “wine jackpot” at this year’s Decanter assessment by submitting two samples and winning two gold medal in the category of white wines. What is more, one of his gold medal was also selected as the “wine trophy”, i.e. the best wine in the entire wine region of Slovenia.