We are traveling in Slovenia for 2 weeks in September 2025. We are wine lovers and want to spend 3 nights in the Gorski Brda region, or at least do some tastings there. My research shows that the 2 main towns are Dobrovo and Smartno. We usually stay in airbnbs. We will have a car. Has anyone spent any time in this area and have any helpful advice for us? There don't appear to be a lot of options for lodging/dining around there. Are there restaurants in either of these towns? Is it a better idea to stay in this area for wine tourism or to travel back and forth from Ljubljana, maybe even taking day trips and/or wine tours? Not sure if the infrastructure for wine tourism is there or not quite yet. Kind of hard to find a lot of information online or in travel blogs, books, etc.
Thanks for your help!
Posted by
Cleveland area
52 posts
I would definitely stay in the wine region, since you have two weeks in Slovenia. We drove through Brda and stayed at a winery in Collio Italy. It would be considered one wine region if not in two countries. It is a lovely area with plenty of restaurants and places to stay.
We also stayed in Vipava for two nights and had some wonderful winery stops there. I think Brda is more well known but we loved Vipava too. We considered using Winestronaut but ended up self driving.
Here is our trip report from last year with more details: Slovenia Trip Report (22 days)
Posted by
3 posts
Hi Susan,
We are traveling to Slovenia in June and spending two nights in Brda at Tavarneta Estate in Dobrovo. Looks lovely but I can report back upon our return. But to me there seems to be plenty of things to do and plenty of restaurants as well.
Posted by
Midwest, USA
239 posts
I visited just the Vipava Valley in that region last summer and rented a car from Ljubljana. But I was hopping around to different areas in Slovenia for a week and a half. That wine region is beautiful countryside dotted with small villages. But even in the village where I stopped for lunch (which was super small), there were vineyards with rooms to rent for the night. I went to Majerija in Slap (Vipava) and had one of the best meals of my life with accompanying wine. They had a lovely inn attached to the vineyard and I wished I could have stayed but they were fully booked so I just did a long lunch with a walk in the gardens.
I’d suggest booking a few nights in the wine region and then a couple nights in Ljubljana too. You can cover a lot of territory in small amount of time in Slovenia. Plus if you’re wine tasting, you may want to just relax and enjoy the local village. There was a fair amount of traffic on the highway and construction was nuts in Ljubljana coming back into the city and it made it hard to get to my car rental place and I spent a fair amount of time in traffic.
I liked having Friday night in Ljubljana because there was so much going on and they had the Odprta Kuhna (open kitchen food market) where you could walk from booth to booth trying different food and wine. It’s only on Fridays. I also took a food tour with Ljubljanayum during the day before the Open Kitchen and that was a nice introduction to local favorites and we tried lots of Slovenian wines with our food stops at local restaurants.
Have fun! Would love to read a report of your favorite wineries!