Every November, as the days grow shorter and the vineyards settle into autumn, Slovenia finds a reason to gather. On Wednesday, Martinovanje, the feast of St Martin, turned the country’s attention to wine once more, as cellars opened, tables filled and glasses of young wine were raised to the harvest. It is the most domestic of Slovenia’s feasts, and the more it is sold as a festival, the more it risks losing the cellars that made it.
The feast rests on a simple piece of folk logic. Around St Martin’s Day the must turns into wine, still cloudy and a little rough, and what is celebrated is the year that produced it, from the pruning to the harvest, rather than the bottle itself.
Nearly one Slovene in seven tends vines, and written records of viticulture here reach back to the third century BC. Today the country counts three wine-growing regions and nine districts, with indigenous varieties that grow almost nowhere else, from Žametovka in the east to Vitovska grganja on the Karst and Zelen and Pinela in the Vipava Valley. For most of those who make it, wine is a small plot behind the house rather than a luxury product, and a reason to argue with the neighbours every autumn about whose must came out best.
"The more it is sold as a festival, the more it risks losing the cellars that made it."
Manca Frank, student associate at ISR
Martin himself was a curious choice of patron. Born around 316 in Savaria, today’s Szombathely in Hungary, he served as a Roman soldier and died in 397 as bishop of Tours. Legend has it that he hid among geese to avoid being made bishop and that their cackling gave him away, which is how the goose found its way onto the plate. His link to wine is murkier.
The feast that bears his name is much older than he is. Its roots may lie in a Celtic festival that marked the end of the farming year and gave thanks for the fertility of fields and vineyards, and later celebrations of new wine have been linked to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. The custom reached Slovenia from German lands and settled onto the same old harvest thanksgiving. The church gave the feast a name and a date, and the cellars kept its spirit.
The heart of the feast was always the cellar, where men dressed as bishops or monks “christened” the must, with a neighbour standing as godfather. In Goriška Brda, winemakers left an apple studded with cloves and Mediterranean herbs on a barrel to foretell the next harvest, which would be good if the apple dried and poor if it rotted.
"For most of those who make it, wine is a small plot behind the house rather than a luxury product."
Manca Frank, student associate at ISR
Then came the table. Roast goose or duck with mlinci, a thin baked flatbread softened in the roasting juices, and red cabbage is no accident of taste, since older harvest rites offered poultry in thanks and the goose later found its saint in Martin. Families ate slowly, together with those who had helped in the vineyard.
Slovenia is right to promote its wine, and the European Best Destinations ranking has just named Štajerska Europe’s best wine region for 2027. But Martinovanje is worth more as an occasion than as a product. Its best celebrations happen in a cellar with too few chairs, where a host in a borrowed mitre insists his must is better than his neighbour’s, and if that cellar disappears, no ranking will bring it back.