Last Night in Grožnjan

“I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse.”

J.D Salinger

Another ten hour sleep.

I like waking up slowly. No alarm, nowhere to be. Just coming out of sleep without any rush. Falling back into a doze and waking again, gradually.

I cook some breakfast and the room smells of bacon.

It is a stunning day, with blue skies. We go for a walk on the Parenzana hiking trail loops into Grožnjan and we jump on for a few kilometers.

“The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.”

Edward Abbey

We head out to Kabola Winery. We try their three Malvasia’s. One early drinking and perfect sitting in the sun on a warm Spring day. The second is aged in oak and the last is fermented in amphora made of clay that is buried in the ground. All excellent.

We finish with an aged Teran. These old vine Teran’s are excellent.

We grab a bottle of the oak aged Malvasia and a bottle of the Tern before heading to lunch.

Konoba Rino for soup; asparagus and minestrone. Truffle pasta and steak with truffles. A nice house red to wash it all down. We decide on an apple strudel to finish.

Home and Shell has a nap while I do some reading.

When Shell wakes up she is ready for a wine. I open the 2021 Kobola Unico Malvasia. There is plenty of oak on this wine, but the fruit is big enough to carry it. At four years old, it could easily develop for another few years.

I make some snacks – anchovies with the Malvasia and salumi with truffle to go with the Teran.

The 2021 Kabola Teran is not as powerful or complex as the Tomaz or Matošević but still great drinking.

We finish the wine as the sun is going down.

We sit outside and talk until we run out of all the alcohol. Desert wines are gone. The liqueurs are gone.

I don’t want to leave.