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Dru`inska kmetija ^rnko Jareninski vrh 5 2221 Jarenina phone: +386 62 640-735 |
If you ever travel from Maribor toward Gornja Radgona, take time to turn off into the Jarenina Valley and visit the estate of Sre~ko ^rnko. It is quite probable that you will not be the only visitor: ^rnko is one of those vignerons who rarely offer their bottles in wine shops as most of his wines are sold to connoisseurs who visit the estate regularly.
^rnko cultivates 5.5 hectares (13.6 acres) of vineyards on the sites of Jarenina and neighbouring Slatenik. The average annual yield is thirty tons of grapes, a wide variety of white wines only: La{ki Rizling, Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Rumeni Mu{kat, Mu{kat Otonel, Sivi Pinot, Renski Rizling, and Rizvanec. Two hundred hectoliters (5284 gallons) of wines are produced every year, half in the quality range and half in the high-quality range.
Some of the Chardonnay, La{ki Rizling, and Sauvignon is blended to produce fifty hectoliters (1321 gallons) of Jarenin~an, a quality wine. Most of ^rnko's wines are varietal.
Sre~ko ^rnko believes in classical winegrowing, and his wines are fermented and matured in oak barrels. Although well known to connoisseurs, his wines have only recently been displayed at wine fairs.
^rnko's Rumeni Mu{kat is particularly appreciated as typical for this variety, moderately aromatic and not too sweet; the 1991 vintage won the gold medal at the Maribor Wine Exhibition. His 1992 La{ki Rizling was awarded a gold medal at the Ljubljana Wine Fair. 1993 was a particularly good year for ^rnko wines: his Sauvignon won gold and a dry Renski Rizling and a coppery late harvest Sivi Pinot each won silver in Ljubljana. Even the dismal 1994 was not all bad: his Sivi Pinot Jagodni Izbor with hand-painted custom labels won a gold medal, one of the few awarded to Podravje winegrowers at the 1995 Ljubljana Wine Fair.
The best ^rnko vintages are 1992 and 1993.
