Wine secrets from the Istrian corner

JEFF festival follows the various tastes of its diversified audience. If the museum garden is a beautiful location for music concerts, the Istrian corner is like a crowded marketplace where people can meet, talk and enjoy the night drinking good wine and trying new tastes.

Wandering curiously among the various stands, we found Patricija Pirnat, representant of the Agraria Koper. Having partners in Koper, Izola and Piran, she is promoting local fruits and vegetables, involved in a kind of “biological warfare”: she is avoiding pesticides, taking care of the environment in a high level. All her meals looked so inviting that we immediately grabbed some from her stand.

Regarding drinks, two guys from Kšok (Students’ Association of Koper), Andraž and Klemen, were very pleased to introduce us the bar where they sell drinks, as it is a nice addition of JEFF. We were kind of impressed; these guys have a funny (but very interesting!) idea about the connection between music and wine: “If you drink a bit more, you start listening the kind of music you are not used to and you understand it in another way” (N.B. it’s not a suggestion to get drunk!).

At the bar of the JEFF we found different kinds of drinks: selected wines, lager, dark and red beer, and above all, “the top drink for the summer”, peaches in wine, called boula in Slovenian. This is a refreshing drink, really enjoyable and very easy to prepare: you have just to get peaches, chop them in small pieces, put them in white wine and add sugar and water. That’s all, just don’t forget the ice on this hot weather when you are in Koper!

The selection of wine is different every week, it depends on the sponsors. So we never know what will we have, but the boys assured us they try to get the favorites of the locals and offer something alternative as well.

Talking about Istrian wine, Andraž and Klemen mentioned a joke: “Italians say that there are four types of wine: red, white, good and bad. Here in Istria there are only three types: red, white and good. We don’t have a bad wine here”. The reason of such good wine is the particular Istrian soul, a green and cozy garden of a museum and the temperate climate of this area, that fortunately doesn’t have too cold winters or hot summers.