Boutique Hotels in Dobrovo

Brda is made for slow wandering between hilltop villages, and the pleasures are low-key and delicious. Dobrovo, the main town, is the natural orientation point: its white Renaissance castle of four corner towers, built in the seventeenth century, holds a restaurant, a gallery and a small museum, with a regional wine shop and tourist office to point you at the growers. Just below sits Klet Brda, the largest wine cellar in Slovenia. From here the region opens into a web of small roads linking villages worth the detour — Medana, Biljana, Gradno — and the Gonjače viewing tower, which lays the whole patchwork of vines and hills out below.

The jewel is Šmartno, a tiny medieval village still ringed by its defensive walls and towers, raised against Venetian and Turkish raids and now a huddle of stone houses, a Baroque church and a couple of very good places to eat. Beyond the villages, the appeal is the land itself: vineyards and cherry orchards (Brda's cherries are famous), olive groves and cypresses, and the Italian Collio rolling on seamlessly across an invisible border — cross it for a coffee or an ice cream and you will barely notice you have left Slovenia.

Wine is the reason to come, and Brda does it with real seriousness and no pomp. The signature grape is Rebula, known as Ribolla over the border, made dry, sparkling, and in the skin-contact "orange" style the region helped revive; alongside it grow Sauvignon, the Pinots and Merlot, much of it organic or biodynamic, in cellars that range from Slovenia's biggest to one-family garages. Tastings are easy to arrange and warmly hosted; the regional festivals — Brda and Wine in Šmartno in spring, St Martin's in November when the must becomes wine — are the liveliest times to visit.

The other reason is the food. Brda eats Italian-influenced and seasonal, and the long multi-course lunch on a terrace over the vines is the regional art form. For where to stay, the club's choice is Hotel Gredič at Ceglo, a centuries-old castle of just seven rooms with a Michelin-recognised restaurant and a cellar gathering the region's finest growers — the obvious base for a few days of wine, table and quiet in the heart of the hills.

Brda is loveliest from late spring to autumn, and the calendar follows the vine. Spring brings cherry blossom, the first warm days and the Brda and Wine festival in Šmartno; early summer is green and quiet, good for cycling the hills before the heat builds. Autumn is the prize: the grape harvest from September, golden light on the vineyards, and St Martin's in November, when the new wine is christened and the region celebrates. Summer is warm and Mediterranean, fine for long terrace lunches if you don't mind the heat. Winter is quiet and many growers and eateries wind down, though the castle and the bigger cellars stay open. For wine and atmosphere, come in autumn; for blossom and calm, spring.