The Wines of Scurek Winery

Scurek (Ščurek) is a family winery in Plešivo, a hamlet of Dobrovo, in the heart of the Slovenian Goriška Brda, a few hundred metres from the border with the Italian Collio. Twenty-five hectares, around one hundred thousand bottles a year, twenty-two labels, and Ribolla Gialla as the flagship variety. Prices start at around 15 euros for the single-varietal steel-aged wines and reach 60 euros for the UP. The short answer, if you are in a hurry: the blends are worth what they cost, the entry-level single varietals almost never are.

Who the Ščurek Are and Where the Winery Is Located

The winery is in Plešivo, a handful of houses above Medana, but most of the vineyards lie on the other side of the border, in Italian territory. It is a detail that says a great deal: here the frontier is a bureaucratic line cutting in two a single slope of marl and sandstone. The family’s best vineyards are:

• Grotišče
• Dugo
• Mahober
• Jazbine
• Jordano
• Gredič
• Kozlink

If you are planning a trip to the area, it is also worth reading about which restaurants and wine bars there are in the Collio between San Floriano and Dolegna and in Gorizia.

The winery left the local cooperative in 1986 and bottled under its own label for the first time in 1989. Today Stojan is at the helm with five children, which explains why in the tasting room you will almost always find someone with the same surname behind the counter. Production is divided into three lines, and understanding this division is half the work when choosing a bottle.

White label

Ready-to-drink wines, stainless steel, single varietal. Rumena Rebula, Jakot, Sivi Pinot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot.

Brown and gold label

Spontaneous fermentations, cold macerations, wood ranging from barriques to 600-litre casks. This is where Stara Brajda Belo, Dugo, Malvazija, Jazbine, and Sivi Pinot Orange belong.

UP line

The house’s top tier, long ageing in new wood.

Outside this framework sits the Kontra, produced since 2001 from seven dedicated casks: hand-destemmed Ribolla Gialla and Chardonnay, spontaneous fermentation in wood, ten months on the skins, and direct bottling from the barrique, for a total that varies between twelve hundred and two thousand bottles.

Scurek Wines: Price Ranges and What to Expect

Below are the bottles from the winery that I have drunk, with food, at home. Prices are the retail list prices from Slovenian online shops, where the winery is better distributed than elsewhere.

Lower Price Range (up to 15 euros)

Cabernet Franc

Colour: purple red.

What it is like: blueberries, undergrowth, cherry, and over everything a winey tone that covers the variety’s character rather than letting it emerge. Young, nervy, best served around 13 degrees because warmer it becomes tiring to get through. The finish returns to raspberry.

Pairing: cotechino with mustard and horseradish. The freshness of the wine holds its own against the aggression of the mustard.

Verdict: honest, forgettable. Not a serious flaw at this price, but easily skipped.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Colour: ruby red with violet hints.

What it is like: the nose is the best part, wild and deep, blackcurrant and wet earth. Then it hits the palate and you catch the prickle of fermentation. At an osmiza that slight spritz is a treat; in a bottle it is a problem, because after the first glass you do not want a second. Chalky tannins, good acidity.

Pairing: pasta with ragù, which cleans the palate without fuss.

Verdict: an osmiza wine that should have stayed there.

Jakot (Friulano)

Colour: light golden yellow.

What it is like: a warm, full-bodied Friulano. Do not look for fruit here – there are acacia flowers and aromatic herbs, and a density that surprises for the price range. The finish is long and the bitter almond comes through cleanly.

Pairing: handles food without effort. With a mushroom risotto it does not shy away.

Verdict: the best of the three, and still a wine that lacks a clear direction.

Lower-Mid Price Range (20-27 euros)

Stara Brajda Belo (blend of Ribolla Gialla, Pikolit, Pika, Glera, Trzarka and Malvasia)

Colour: intense golden yellow.

What it is like: a cannonball. Yellow flowers, nectarine, mango, wet stone, and a wood presence that is there but does not raise its voice. The palate follows the nose but is fresher than the first approach promises: silky, with a savouriness that burns the lips. On the retro-olfactory side, smoky and nectarine again. The finish is long and spicy, closing almost on chilli. The lively elements do not come from the fruit but from the tertiaries – a choice, not an accident.

Pairing: with grilled chicken it simply overwhelmed it. You need something that can respond to the wine’s power: oily fish, white meat with a robust sauce, aged cheeses.

Verdict: at 25 euros it is an absolutely solid wine.

Dugo (Ribolla Gialla, Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco)

Colour: golden yellow.

What it is like: a reductive nose that opens onto cloves, smoke, wet wood, and promises quite a lot. Then on the palate the alcohol feels stronger than the stated 13 degrees. The body is there, acidity is moderate, and the salinity is the most interesting part. Notes of tinned pineapple come through. You can pick out the humidity of the Pinot Bianco and the softness of the Chardonnay, but not the freshness of the Ribolla Gialla, which ought to be there. If you want to understand what Ribolla Gialla brings to a blend — and what it costs at different price points — Ribolla Gialla and Its Price is a useful reference.

Pairing: with roast chicken breast it was too similar to itself – two softnesses cancelled each other out. Better with something fatty and salty.

Verdict: good, but for another six euros you can take home the Stara Brajda Belo, which beats it.

Upper-Mid Price Range (over 30 euros)

Pinot Noir

Colour: garnet red.

What it is like: plum jam on the nose, spice, undergrowth. The body is lean and imprecise, chalky tannins settle on the tongue, the acidity holds and the fruit is concentrated. But the finish dies almost immediately.

Pairing: with a rib-eye it cleaned the palate well enough. It adds nothing to the dish.

Verdict: at 32 euros it is the only bottle from the winery I would advise against without hesitation. With that money, buy the Stara Brajda Rdeče.

Stara Brajda Rdeče (Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Refosco)

Colour: ruby red.

What it is like: a wine that changes considerably from one vintage to the next (a good sign), and the two bottles I drank seemed almost like two different labels. In the softer one, the bouquet does all the work – powerful and broad, strawberry jam, cherry, raspberry, leather, cinnamon – while the palate starts almost innocuously and grows alongside a long, firm, and surprisingly fine tannin. What keeps it from being great is the acidity: it drifts towards off-dry and settles there. In the second bottle the opposite happened. The nose is not obvious, almost restless – plum, pepper, cinnamon, violet – and the palate is taut as a wire, held up by a sharp acidity and powdery tannins that cling to the gums. Dry, nervy structure, with an almost opulent fruit as counterweight and a medium-length finish on red cherry. Same grape, same cask, two different characters.

Pairing: with lamb shoulder it holds its own, but the two do not speak to each other. With marinated lamb, however, the fat of the meat provides a backdrop for the fruit of the wine – one of those rare cases where the pairing is a conversation rather than a cohabitation.

Verdict: at 27 euros it is a good red with a degree of variability, but on balance it is worth buying.

UP (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot)

Colour: garnet red with violet hints.

What it is like: the nose is rich and coherent with the blend – blueberry jam, nutmeg, leather, blackcurrant, a breath of volatile acidity that lifts rather than weighs it down. The body is medium and surprisingly clean, with a restrained hint of mint. The acidity is quiet at first and bursts at the end. The tannins are ripe, chalky, unpretentious, felt on the front of the mouth. The finish lasts around twenty seconds between dried plum and blackberry, with the oak spice kept on a short leash. The 13.5 degrees are never noticeable. It is never coarse, and it is never simple.

Pairing: oven-roasted veal with its own jelly. A village-fête of flavour, cheerful and carefree.

Verdict: sixty euros is not a small sum. Yet this is the only wine from Scurek with no obvious flaws, and thirty-six months in new wood have not robbed it of its voice. Chapeau.

Is a Producer Only as Good as Its Worst Wines?

I cannot remember what brought me to Scurek. At the time I was not writing down my impressions of wines, so it must have been something I read, a name encountered in passing, the kind of tip you pick up without knowing from whom. Since then I have ordered directly from the winery several times, with home delivery, and every time I have dealt with kind people. The photos that circulate online also convey the idea of a cheerful tribe – five siblings, a father, plenty of warmth. Then you open the bottle.

And this is where the problem lies, because the wines, measured against their price range, have let me down. The entry-level ones are often less than an entry-level: the occasionally clear glass bottle is an ill omen that duly comes true. Moving up in price you find a bit of everything – you can land well (the Stara Brajda wines generally hold up) or badly, as with a Pinot Noir that is extremely difficult to grow at these latitudes and which accordingly says nothing. At the top of the pyramid sits the UP, and there the quality genuinely arrives, but it arrives with the nagging feeling that the steps below were slippery. I believe a serious producer knows how to translate quality across the whole range, obviously calibrated to the price. Scurek takes too many decisions aimed at cutting corners.

Then there is the question of natural wines, and here I am even more severe. There are two ways to arrive at these products: out of conviction – in which case the entire winery moves accordingly – or to occupy a market niche that customers are asking for. If alongside a macerated, sulphite-free line you keep traditional production running, you are most likely following the second path. Natural wine is a category I love, provided the bottles are good and uncompromising, born from a philosophy rather than from an extra line on the price list. A natural section within a winery that also does everything else looks too much like the organic shelf in a supermarket: it is there because someone is looking for it, not because anyone truly believes in it.

Which Scurek Bottle to Buy, and When

If you want to approach this winery from scratch, do it through the blends:

1. Stara Brajda Belo, 27 euros. The wine with the best ratio between what it asks and what it gives, and a quick way to understand what the whites of the Brda can do when they meet large wood.
2. UP, 60.49 euros. A splendid Slovenian Bordeaux-style blend.
3. Stara Brajda Rdeče, 32.49 euros. Good, with its limitations.

And the single varietals? The Jakot at 12 euros is a sensible buy for a Wednesday evening. The others I would avoid, especially the Cabernet Sauvignon.

For other winery reviews, read the one on Donnafugata here.