Only a few miles kilometers from the city center of Maribor, the congress or business guest to this second largest Slovenian city, can visit a special wine retreat – the Wine Fountain (Fontana vin). In the town of Vodole, Bogdan Mak at his Sunny Paradise estate (Sončni raj) opened the first Wine Fountain (Fontana vin) in northern Slovenia. At the same time, the fountain is the biggest wine fountain in Europe. The ceremonial opening took place on the 2nd of November to coincide with the Slovenia-wide celebrations in the first half of November that every year accompany one of the most celebrated Slovenian cultural holidays – the St.Martin’s Day. Celebrations take place all the way up until the official St.Martin’s Day on the 11th of November.
In order to go along with Maribor’s tradition of the St.Martin’s Day celebration, the Sončni raj estate opened the fountain that this year works as an experiment. The Wine Fountain is open until the 17th of November, and then it will be re-opened again when the Spring with warmer and sunnier weather arrives. From its opening in April 2020, the Fountain will be open all the way to November 2020, seven days a week. Investment into the fountain was 200,000 euros and Bogdan Mak from Sončni raj is predicting to host next year from April to November somewhere between seven and ten thousand visitors.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The Wine Fountain is standing on a wooden terrace with a gorgeous view of the valley. Each visitor receives a glass with a chip and can six times choose among eight different local wines that are provided. The Sončni raj estate provides visitors also with non-alcoholic beverages, like hemp syrup and an echinacea syrup; both are made at the estate. For those who also like some adrenaline on top, they can take a free zipline ride – Bee’s Flight (Čebelji let).
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 in north-eastern Slovenia and largest in Europe provides visitors with eight different local wines.){kind=link}