Doppler Winery

Female-led, Doppler is a small estate making very pure wines in Northeast Slovenia, only 5 km from the Austrian border. The winery is a strikingly modern structure with clean lines of concrete, expanses of glass giving panoramic views and the fermentation and maturation areas buried within the hilltop.

At over 1000 feet ASL, it looks over the Pesnica Valley and the Sentilj Hills at the tail-end of the Alps. Grandfather, Ivan Doppler, bought the estate in 1938, though winemaking origins here go all the way back to 1816. Mihaela Kopse took over from her mother, but she credits her grandfather with teaching her a lot. He died at the age of 92. Mihaela works with her three daughters: Lina, Lena and Lana, so there is a strong line of female succession here. The vineyards extend to 9 ha on clay/limestone soils. With 2000 sunshine hours and 1000 mm of rain per year, there are large night and day temperature variations that lead to bright fruit flavours. The estate converted to organic in 2021 so will shortly be certified, though in actual fact they haven’t used pesticides for nine years.