PEOPLE

I am in my second half of this era. Every harvest and every vintage are a new experience that keeps me awake at night. I am still learning.

I was four years old, when my mom started planting a vineyard. She put the vines into the ground by hand, one by one, a total of 12,000 grafts. In 1999, I produced my first wine. Fantastic vintage. The Chardonnay berry selection ranked just behind the world wine champion in the international wine competition. I was a bit distraught because I did not win. I wanted to have the best wine in the world, so that people from all over the globe would come to see where the vine, from which it was produced, grows. Today, that may sound naïve, if not presumptuous. But at 21, there is nothing wrong with being ambitious. I spent all my time in the vineyard.

Following ten grape harvests in our family vineyard, I received a job offer. I had never been to Goričko before. Terra incognita. The first time I drove there, I lost my way and stopped In front of a quarry. A fascinating experience. Large blocks of volcanic basalt. There were only four small wine barrels in the old cellar in Kramarovci. At the time, the wine cellar in Mačkovci only existed on paper. That was the first time I glanced around from the ridge of the Bodonci vineyard. The first time I saw those old Sauvignon Blanc vines. It was immediately clear to me that I was at a special location. My first vintage at MAROF was 2009. It was exceptional.

We are living in a time, when people have lost touch with the earth. Agronomy has been reduced to economy first and foremost, land is merely a source of income. Farming should equal agriculture, cultural activity on the land. Wine is a culture as well. A thousand-year-old culture.

I no longer strive to produce the best wine, what I now seek is to make the most honest wine. For people from around the globe to come to see where the vine from which it was made grows. 

If the counts of Szapary managed to create a renowned wine estate and wine here, there is no doubt that we can succeed in doing the same!

In the 1980s, when Slovenian winemaking experienced a major upturn in terms of expertise and quality, the area of Goričko remained a blind spot on the world map of wine. Wines produced here were neither written nor talked about. The Rakičan Agricultural Cooperative cultivated the vines in Mačkovci, Bodonci and Kramaovci, producing insignificant amounts of (bulk) wine, most of the grapes were sold to larger wine cellars. 

While most perceived the wine-growing under-development of Goričko as a weakness, the founder of the MAROF wine-growing estate and cellar MAROF recognized it as a challenge. He had the vision to prove that it is possible to make wines at the MAROF estate that belong not only among the best in Slovenia but also in the world.