Story · Prlekija

The vineyard next door.

We came back home to Prlekija — Miha, Ajda, and our newborn daughter — and found a left-behind vineyard waiting beside our rented house.

This is the last season.

Then ten bottles.

And a new story can begin.

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Home

We came back to where we began.

A young family. A rented house. Hills full of vines.

The small house we rent in our home village — home · for now

We left the city and came home, back to the village where we were born and raised. We rent a small house here, where every morning the green hills unfold in front of us, just as they always have.

Prlekija

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here · Prlekija

This is Prlekija — vine country, sometimes called the Slovene Tuscany. Gentle hills covered in vineyards, roads connecting small villages, and wine deeply rooted in everyday life. We did not move somewhere new. We returned to a place that already knew us.

Green hills and vines in Prlekija at golden hour — Prlekija · vine country

The vineyard

Beside our house, a vineyard was waiting.

Right next to us lies a vineyard that was left behind. The owner died. The work stopped. For about five years, almost no one stepped into those rows — and still the vines kept growing, quieter and wilder each season.

The vines were also carrying a disease that could spread to the neighboring vineyards. The neighbors felt it too. Clearing a sick vineyard takes time nobody wants to give. So the parcel sat there: close enough to see from our window, heavy enough that no one wanted to be the one to start.

We decided we would. Not because it is easy — but because it is next to our home, because it affects the people around us, and because someone has to show up before this last season ends.

next door · as it is now

Aerial view of autumn vineyards in Prlekija — rows · left behind

The sickness

Rumenica is in these vines — and it does not stay put.

Grape clusters on an untended vine at sunset — last fruit · as it grew

The vineyard is sick with rumenica — a disease of the vine, carried by the American grapevine leafhopper, Scaphoideus titanus. At first, the vines still look alive. Then, season by season, they weaken. The harvest becomes smaller, the grapes lose quality, and eventually the vines die. There is no cure for it — only ways to slow it down and keep it from travelling further.

That is the hard truth for everyone living beside it. The disease does not stop at a fence. Left untouched, it can find its way into the neighboring vineyards.

The grapes themselves are strange and honest. They are sick, yet still perfectly edible. For five years, almost nothing was sprayed here — no pesticides — so in a way, they are clean, almost organic by accident. They are simply not as sweet. Nature kept working. Nobody was there to interfere.

This will be the last season of this vineyard. Too many vines are sick. After the harvest, they have to come out — to stop the disease from spreading, and to give this hillside a chance to begin again.

Last pour

Ten bottles. That is all.

Before the vines come out, we will make one last wine from this place — and only ten bottles. Each one a limited piece, carrying a sponsor who stands with us.

This project is how we try to live a little from people who believe in the work: something for the community around us, something for the sponsors who help, and the money toward building our new home — maybe even seeding a new vineyard here when the ground is ready again.

A glass of wine with a family reflected in the liquid — one last pour

Indie Vineyard

We are not selling perfect wine. We are telling the truth.

We will say it plainly. Because of the sickness, this wine may not be the finest pour you have ever tasted. There is nothing wrong with it — and in one quiet way it is even better: it grew without pesticides. Still, the heart of Indie Vineyard is not a tasting score. It is the story of a family that came home, a vineyard left behind, and a last season done with care.

Quality still matters in Prlekija. We grew up knowing that. We will not pretend this bottle is something it is not — and we will not let honesty become an excuse to look away.

So this is why we are here: to take care of what sits beside our rented house, to help the people around us, to close these rows the right way, and to build a little of what comes next — together with anyone who wants their name on one of the ten.

Snow-covered vineyards and village in Prlekija — what comes next