10.00 – 10.30
Vila Vipolže
Arrival at Vila Vipolže and registration
10.30 – 12.30
Jeep Tour of Brda vineyards
Learning about the terroir, its unique characteristics, and sites with a focus on sustainable development and the impact of climate change with prof. Giovanni Bigot, agronomist & constant.
12.30 – 13.15
Light lunch at Kruh in Vino
13.30 – 16.00
Vila Vipolže
- Grand Vertical Tasting of Rebula vintages 2023-2020
- Presentation: The story of Opoka: from the rocks to the soil, Ph. D. Helena Grčman, Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana
- Presentation of the included vintages with an interpretation of the effects of climate change: Professor Giovanni Bigot
Guests of honor: Caroline Gilby MW, Gašper Čarman
16:00 – 16:30
Break
16.30 – 18.30
Interactive presentation of participating winemakers and various styles of Rebula
18.30 – 19.30
Break, check in at Hotel
19:30 – 23:00
Exclusive Dinner “Rebula Experience” With chef Cristian Nardulli
Caroline Gilby MW
Decanter Magazine, DWWA 2019 Regional Chair for North, Central & Eastern Europe
Caroline Gilby MW is a freelance writer and consultant, specialising in Central and Eastern Europe. Among others, she currently contributes to Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, The Oxford Companion to Wine, and the World Atlas of Wine, and has previously written for Dorling Kindersley’s Wines of the World, The Wine Opus, and Tom Stevenson’s Wine Report. Prior to her career as a writer, Gilby spent seven years as a senior wine buyer at Augustus Barnet off-licences, where she became the first major buyer to import Hungarian wines to the UK. She initially studied plant biology, in which she holds a doctorate, but abandoned life behind the microscope for a career in wine soon after winning the Decanter-Macallan Malt Whisky Taster of the Year Award while still a student. Gilby passed her MW in 1992 and has been visiting and tasting the wines of Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania for over 20 years.
Gašper Čarman
For the last fifteen years, Gašper Čarman has been living his dream by catering to the wishes of wine enthusiasts in Slovenia and Europe. In 2004, he established eVino, the first online wine shop in Slovenia, which in fifteen years became the largest fine wine distributor in Slovenia. Together with his sister Nina, Gašper runs “Danilo gostilna & vinoteka”, a family restaurant with 60 years of tradition. His very special project is a wine brand called Gasper, where he joined forces with Klet Brda and successfully selling his wines in Slovenia, UK, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Germany, Spain, Croatia, Canada, Brasilia and other countries. Wines have received several DWWA awards including two Platinum medals for Cabernet Franc Selekcija (2017, 2019) – that was the first Platinum Decanter medal for red wines.
As a sommelier, Gašper Čarman has won gold medals in every national competition he took part in. He was competing two times for Best European sommelier and two times for Best World sommelier. He regularly contributes articles on wine and wine-drinking culture to various magazines. He is the only Slovenian wine specialist who studied at the renowned MW institute in London. Gašper is known as a visonar and trendsetter in the Slovenian wine sector and still has a lot of ideas for the Slocenian wine sector.
Prof. Denis Rusjan, Ph.D., M.Sc., Agr. Eng.
Denis Rusjan, Ph.D., is a professor of viticulture at the Biotechnical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana, where he conducts scientific research in addition to giving lectures. In his recent work, he is mostly involved in assessing the value of local and domesticated wine grape varieties and describing their genotypes and phenotypes, including their response to various agrotechnical and ampelotechnical measures, climate change and the increasing number of new diseases appearing in vineyards. Putting forward new genotypes is inevitable to tackle the changing growing and environmental conditions and therefore Prof. Rusjan is also increasingly focusing on selecting local variety biotypes and introducing new ones. His bibliography is a staggering array of scientific and technical publications, not seldom in high-ranking journals.
Giovanni Bigot, agronomist
Giovanni Bigot, an agronomist researcher with a Master’s degree in Lean Management, professor of vineyard monitoring at the University of Udine and is the creator of the Bigot Index. With a career spanning since 1998, Giovanni has been an agronomist researcher and a consultant to some of the finest wineries in Italy, Slovenia, Macedonia, and France. He is also a trainer in numerous courses dedicated to field experimentation and innovation in viticulture. Since 2012, he has held the position of external professor of organic viticulture at the Faculty of Agriculture in Udine. Starting from 2021, he has expanded his role to become an external professor of vineyard monitoring. Giovanni boasts over 50 scientific publications with peer review, including texts focusing on vineyard knowledge and biodiversity studies. He is a dedicated promoter of sustainability projects and research in viticulture.
In 2012, Giovanni founded Perleuve, and today, along with his dedicated team, he collaborates with over 50 wineries in various regions. After years of extensive studies and observations, Giovanni has created and patented the Bigot Index—a scientific and truly innovative method for evaluating the qualitative potential of a vineyard. The index gives winemakers the chance to evaluate their vineyards objectively. It is based on nine internationally recognized agronomic factors that influence grape quality.
Prof. Helena Grčman, Ph. D.
Dr. Helena Grčman is a full professor of pedology at the University of Ljubljana. She is employed at the Biotechnical Faculty, where she has also served as the head of the Department of Pedology and Environmental Protection since 2011. She is an expert on soils in Slovenia. Her research focuses on soil genesis on various parent materials, their pedological and geochemical properties, and the relationships between soil characteristics and land use. She also studies soils as a rich archive of data on past human activities.
