Wine with Leslie: Exciting wines from lesser-known European regions

These wine suggestions are all from Central and Southern Europe

This week we look south and east to regions that deserve more attention. Picture: iStock

The 2025 grape harvest is continuing and it looks like this year will continue the run of good vintages ending in a ‘5’ in France and Italy’s classic regions. But this week I want to look south and east to regions that deserve more attention.

Sinéad and Liam Cabot are hard at work in their vineyard in Slovenia and Sineád tells me that 2025’s vintage is early: “We had a dry spring, followed by a dry summer and whilst our heavy clay soils [old Pannonian seabed] have done us proud despite the lack of rain, we have smaller berries and thicker skins than usual [and] lovely trademark acidity in the fruit; gentle extraction will be the key to maintaining freshness in the Blaufränkisch.” See recommendation below.