be wines brands kelenc

Kelenc

About us

The Kelenc winery is located above the town of Lendava in Lendavske Gorice, where there has been a centuries-long tradition of viticulture. It is located in the most northeastern wine-growing region in Slovenia – the Prekmurska wine-growing region. There is a cellar on the land surrounded by vineyards, where there is already a fifth generation winemaker. The beginning of our winemaking journey goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. Back in 1920, great-grandfather Janez Berden bought about 3 hectares of land. There was already an old underground wine cellar on it, in which wines were stored for the Lendava Manor. He built a house above it, plowed some fields in the area and planted about 20 ares of vines. The farm was inherited by his son Franc, who increased the vineyards and carefully preserved the tradition. At that time, he was a well-known winegrower in this area.

The tradition was carried on by his son-in-law, Vlado Kelenc, who already had winemaking experience, as his father Martin also had a vineyard. He was the first to introduce more modern viticulture and winemaking on our wine route. He further increased the area of vineyards and built a new wine cellar in 1992. The bottling of wine also began at that time. “The tradition must be continued,” emphasized Darko with pleasure. In 2000, he took over the winery and easily decided to follow his heart and love for winemaking. He decided on a career in winemaking, enlarged the vineyards and the cellar, and equipped it with the most modern technology.

Vineyards
The vineyards stand on 6 hectares and include 24,000 vines. They are located in different positions, the cut is single-sparon and double-sparon, but always make sure that the vine is not stressed too much. We do green work by hand, while spraying and mowing are done by machine. For our white cuvee, we also buy grapes from local winegrowers.

Harvesting takes place for about 3 weeks. The grapes are harvested by hand, gently pressed and prepared for further processing.

The white varieties that we have in the vineyards are Laški Riesling, which is the basis for the white cuvee, followed by Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Rhenish Riesling, Yellow Muscat, Fragrant Traminec, White Pinot, and Pinot Gris.

The red varieties are Pinot Noir, Franconian Blue and Zweigelt.