SIVI PINOT 2020

Sivi Pinot means Pinot Gris — and that's where the confusion starts. Pinot Gris is classified as a white grape, but its skin isn't really white at all: it's a dusty, greyish pink, closer to a blush than anything. Most producers press it off the skins fast, before that colour has a chance to show. The Kelhar family, at Keltis in Bizeljsko, does the opposite. Six days of skin contact pull colour, tannin, and texture straight out of that pink skin — turning a 'white' grape into something that pours somewhere between rosé and amber, and drinks closer to a light red than either. It's the kind of wine that makes you double-check the label. Marijan Kelhar has been farming this way since the 1980s; his son Miha now works the cellar alongside him, still coaxing the same trick out of the same hillside.