Guerila Wines

Terraces chosen before the cellar

Wild fermentation sets the pace for Zmago Petrič, winemaker at Guerila Wines in Ajdovscina, where local grapes from Planina enter the cellar without filtration. He founded the wine-growing farm in 2005 on the southern slopes above the Vipava Valley, choosing steep terraced sites and old local varieties as the ground of the work. Petrič’s memory of farming is bodily rather than decorative: childhood work on a small farm, in the vineyard, and in the cellar. The estate still frames wine that way, as something born in the vineyard and ripened to completion in the cellar. His family’s story gives Pinela a particular weight here; the winery connects his father with a prize for grapes of the old Pinella variety in 1956, and Petrič has kept indigenous grapes at the center of the farm’s identity. The role is not presented as a cellar-only post. He selected vineyard sites himself, planted them with local varieties, and built the place around biodynamic farming, spontaneous yeast, and a cellar that handles fruit with as little force as the architecture allows.

Pinela, Zelen, Rebula, Malvasia

The estate’s method runs from pruning to bottling. Guerila’s vineyards earned organic certification in 2008; biodynamic cultivation entered the farm’s stated practice in 2011, and the estate received biodynamic certification in 2014. In the vineyard, the soils include sand, sandstone, marl, limestone, and clay from the Eocene epoch, with terraced vines trained to single Guyot. The work favors compost, green manure, biodynamic preparations, cautious pruning, and tasks set, when possible, by the biodynamic calendar. In the cellar, fermentation begins with indigenous yeast. Wines are bottled without filtration. Pinela gives the clearest view of the method: one documented bottling is 100% Pinela, certified organic and Demeter-certified biodynamic, with 11,600 bottles and 12.5% alcohol. For that wine, the 2023 vintage brought direct pressing, spontaneous fermentation, six months on lees in stainless steel and concrete tanks, then six months in bottle, with minimal sulfur. Across the range, Pinela, Zelen, Rebula and Malvasia carry the estate’s identity, joined by Welschriesling, Barbera, Picolit, and Ribolla Gialla in the vineyards.

A cellar cut into the hill

The cellar at Planina is modern, clean-lined, and set into the hillside rather than staged apart from it. Fruit moves by gravity through a multi-level building, reducing pumping where the slope can do the work. On the entry level, the tasting room and bar hold the public face of the estate; below, the vinification floor and barrel cellar keep the working rhythm out of sight but not out of mind. A tunnel cut 22 meters into adjacent bedrock holds sparkling wine for aging. Concrete and steel tanks sit alongside barriques and demi-muids, used according to cuvée rather than as a house style imposed on every wine. Outside, the south-facing terraces fall away toward the Vipava Valley. Inside, the room stays conversational, with the discipline of a cellar that was built for farming decisions made months earlier.

The long way through biodynamics

Guerila matters because the architecture, varieties, and certifications all point in the same direction. This is not a tasting-room idea later attached to purchased fruit; it is an estate built around selected sites, indigenous grapes, and the patience of biodynamic practice. The portfolio now moves through Classic, Selection, Extreme, and Retro ranges, with still whites, macerated wines, sparkling wine, and pet nat held within the same agricultural logic. End on the grape that keeps the family memory close: Pinela from Planina.