Our History
Behind Mount Carso, Val Rosandra. In front of the sea. Our vineyards and olive groves are located on the last sandstone-marble hill close to the Gulf of Trieste.
The brackish air is accompanied by the Bora wind that sometimes caresses, others curries. Sea and wind certainly help us to take care of the plants, naturally reducing fungi and diseases. This is Breg, our land, between Karst, Istria and the Adriatic Sea. It is the place where we have decided to invest our lives.
We have lived in the family home for at least 400 years. Without having to move it, it has crossed 5 states: Austria, the Kingdom of Italy, the Free Territory of Trieste, the Italian Republic. We are Slovenian, for over 5 generations we have been speaking at least 3 languages. Today, part of the European Union, we all have double passports, Italian and Slovenian. For centuries, the Breg has supplied both the imperial court of Vienna and the great Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste with its products.
After the Second World War, part of this territory was fed to industry and cement. Fortunately, those who preceded us managed to save part of our treasure. Today we take care of 5 hectares of vineyards and 3 hectares of olive groves for about 900 olive trees.
Our steps
The origins
Behind Mount Carso, Val Rosandra. In front of the sea. Our vineyards and olive groves are located on the last sandstone-marble hill close to the Gulf of Trieste. The brackish air is accompanied by the Bora wind that sometimes caresses, others curries. Sea and wind certainly help us to take care of the plants, naturally reducing fungi and diseases.
This is Breg, our land, between Karst, Istria and the Adriatic Sea. It is the place where we have decided to invest our lives. We have lived in the family home for at least 400 years. Without having to move it, it has crossed 5 states: Austria, the Kingdom of Italy, the Free Territory of Trieste, the Italian Republic. We are Slovenian, for over 5 generations we have been speaking at least 3 languages.
Today, part of the European Union, we all have double passports, Italian and Slovenian. For centuries, the Breg has supplied both the imperial court of Vienna and the great Austro-Hungarian port of Trieste with its products. After the Second World War, part of this territory was fed to industry and cement. Fortunately, those who preceded us managed to save part of our treasure. Today we take care of 5 hectares of vineyards and 3 hectares of olive groves for about 900 olive trees.
The difficulties
In 1962 and 63, the Trieste Industrial Zone Authority expropriated the majority of the plain that descends from Dolina to Zaule to build the Industrial Zone and the SIOT oil pipeline. It was a hard blow for Ivan who was expropriated many lands that with hard work and self-denial he had provided to buy during his life. Particularly traumatic was the expropriation of the vineyard called Kržišče, devastated by bulldozers only fifteen days before the harvest.
For the disappointment he also sold a plot in Crogole, dividing the proceeds between his children. He died in 1965 and in his last will divides the remaining family lands among the various heirs. The farm closes. To his nephew Vojko – who later obtains the return of the original surname Kocjančič – he leaves the house where he was born with a vegetable garden and some land.
The rebirth
Vojko Kocjančič is an accountant, he has worked all his life as a clerk, but the vegetable garden and the vineyard are his favorite hobbies. From his maternal grandfather Mirko Komar (also a farmer) he inherited some vineyards in Domio, where in 1985 he planted about forty Tuscan cultivar olive trees, in addition to the native Belica-Bianchera variety.
In 1995 he bought a half-hectare plot of land under Prebenico with about fifty old Belica-Bianchera plants, some of which are secular, and an abandoned vineyard. In the same year his son Rado graduated in accounting, and shortly afterwards left his studies in Economics at the University of Trieste, did his military service and spent six months in California, working in wineries where he learned the trade and English.
Back home, he decides he wants to continue the family tradition and be a farmer, but there is no longer enough land to make an adequate income. For this reason he works at two wineries in the Collio: at Edi Keber and at Castello di Spessa for two years, learning even better the winemaking practice. Then he follows the specialized courses to be able to enroll as a farmer, obtaining the diploma of oil taster.
The modern company
In 1999 Rado Kocjančič began producing with his own farm, renting several vineyards, renovating the Domio vineyard and, with the help of his father and brother Samo, also the Prebenico vineyard, where he completed the olive grove with a further 80 plants, while another 25 are also planted in Crogole.
In 2000 he rents 10 hectares of abandoned pasture on the Brdo-Montedoro hill from Srenja (Comunella) di Dolina. With the help of his family, he planted 15,000 new vines, spread over about 3.3 hectares, and 600 olive trees on another 2 hectares. He plants native varieties such as Refosco, Malvasia, Vitovska and Moscato. He wants to do what, in the Breg, no one had been able to do after the war: aim for the highest quality by managing to live off a profession that no one thought they could do in these area.
It seems crazy to want to be able to live only by working with nature. The farm now cultivates 5 hectares of vineyards and 3 hectares of olive groves (half a hectare of own vineyard, 4.5 hectares of vines on rented land, one hectare of olive grove on owned land and two hectares of olive grove on rented land, for a total of 900 olive trees.) The winery is located in the former stable of Dolga Krona, where the company annually produces about 15,000 bottles of DOC Carso wine and 2,000 bottles (half liter) of DOP Tergeste extra virgin olive oil.
Philosophy change
In 2014 Rado – together with a handful of other companies in the area – deepened its production philosophy, passing from conventional to organic with the help of an external technician. It is not just a new approach, it is a life philosophy that arises from a health problem: in the evening, returning home after treatments in the countryside, he is sick.
Today he works exclusively with natural products. Horse manure and green manure to stimulate soil fertility. Vine treatments with sulfur, copper, homeopathic preparations of medicinal herbs, based on research in quantum physics: horsetail, burdock, nettle, combined with mycorrhizae and algae.
Products that are capable of informing the plant, telling it: these elements exist in nature and you have to look for them yourself. The new techniques tripled the work (yield) thus justifying an idea of natural plant preservation, eliminating invasive interventions both in the countryside and in the cellar.
Acknowledgments
Despite all the difficulties, physical fatigue and bureaucracy, Rado not only manages to live off his work as he had intended, but also receives important awards by winning international awards. Today he is a member of FIVI, the Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers, which defends and promotes those who make their own grapes.
- Vitovska 2018: Slow Wine Recognition from the Slow Wine 2021 guide;
- Vitovska 2018: 4 stars from the Guide Vini Buoni d’Italia 2021 of the Italian Touring Club;
- Vitovska 2018: Corona, the highest award awarded by the Italian Touring Club 2021 Guide Vini Buoni d’Italia;
- Malvasia 2018: 3 stars from the Guide Vini Buoni d’Italia 2021 of the Italian Touring Club;
- Dop Tergeste: mention in the Guide to Extra Virgin Olive Oil 2021, Slow Food Editore;
- Brežanka 2015: 4 stars from the Touring Club 2019 Vini Buoni d’Italia Guide;
- Vitovska 2016: 4 stars from the Touring Club 2019 Vini Buoni d’Italia Guide.
