Happy St. Martin's Day!

Wine tasting, originally uploaded by Mihies.

Must started turning into wine today. There are numerous feasts all over Slovenia, especially in the wine producing regions of our country. Andrej writes about this here. Our town is a meeting point of two major wine growing areas; the Goriška brda area and the Vipava valley area. Many people produce wine at home and Martinovo, as St. Martin's day is called in Slovene, is therefore an important feast. Typical traditional dishes are being served and new wine is being tasted. 'Martinova gos' is one of such typical dishes; a roasted goose accompanied by boiled flatbread ('mlinci') and red cabbage. The roots of this feast can be traced to the preChristian era, when our ancestors celebrated it as thanksgiving day for good harvest.