September 5, 2022
Adventures in (Attempted) Wine Purchasing in Maribor (Sept. 5, 2022)
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Everybody that cycle tours know that shopping is pretty much out of question (except for consumables). In general, this is NOT a hardship for Dave nor me, since I don’t enjoy shopping - except a little on-line for our grandchild Nick and our nieces, nephews and children - and Dave only shops at the market. We are just at that time of life where we don’t need to buy stuff or clothes or whatever. When we travel we sometimes think about buying one piece of artwork but we often don’t get around to it and so Dave does a photo collage of each of our trips - a great way to redo the “artwork” in our house. (Everytime I look at those photos on my wall I feel great joy!).
But the day after we left Ljubljana we were thinking about how much we have enjoyed the wines of Slovenia and Dave said we should order a case of Slovenian wine to ship back to the US. Jill, who occasionally has a slightly more frugal side, said “Gee, won’t that be expensive?" To which Dave said, “Honey, in the scheme of what we are spending on this trip what's the difference? And think how much fun we will have on opening each bottle back in Oregon and sharing it with friends.” And yeah - he was right about all that. Or course, it would have been great if we had had that wine purchasing brainstorm while in Ljubljana- the capital, not to mention we had seven days there to mess around. But since we were on our way to Maribor, the second largest city in Slovenia, we agreed we would scope out a wine shop there. (And hey, for those of you NOT riveted with my description of Dave’s laundry-doing adventures, this wine purchasing effort would mean he would NOT be doing laundry in Maribor!)
So, Maribor IS a center for wine and also happens to be the home of the oldest vine: 400 years old — allegedly. So on first blush we scoped out what appeared to be the best opportunity, the Old Vine Shop . We duly stopped by there during our reconnaissance of Maribor and learned that, “Yes, we do have Slovenian wine, but only those from the area around Maribor. And we can ship to the US."
Since we were hoping to get some wines we had actually consumed, we then looked for a wine shop that had wines from all over Slovenia, not just local ones. (At this point we were in the emotional realm of achieving shopping perfection, rather than simply going for the possible.). So with with the help of Google maps we found Matteo at Polek, a delightful, small but crammed shop with an enthusiastic owner who was pretty darned thrilled to have two Americans wander into his store, wanting to buy a case of wine and ship it to America - cost be damned! He assured us that shipping to America was entirely possible, ordered us up a complimentary cappuccino and espresso from the bar next door and we then commenced a super fun hour getting educated about Matteo’s wines. We picked out 13 wines (because you can squish 2 bottles of dessert wine into one slot in a case.) In the meantime, various folks wandered into the shop and we had lots of fun little conversations with other customers and just generally had a very fine time and were feeling really proud of ourselves for accomplishing this challenging task. We took some merry pictures and left with the plan we would come back before dinner to get the final tally on the cost and pay.
Fast forward 5 hours and our return to Polek: We learn there is a problem. Of course there is ☹️. Unbeknownst to us, Matteo had never shipped to America before and when he called around to find out what to do, talking to friends etc., it turned out not to be so simple. It was POSSIBLE to ship through the Slovenian Post but the Slovenian Post would not insure against breakage AND — more to the point — it was an absolute mystery as to what would happen when the box reached America. He had no idea whether or where it would get stuck in customs, duty etc. And the risk would all be on us - we would have to pay for the wine now and just hope some day it would arrive and somehow get through customs. This didn’t sound too great. Anyway, the OTHER idea Matteo had was that we would contact Fed Ex in America and arrange for them to pick the wine up and ask them to do the customs paperwork etc. (It was never clear to us why that couldn’t be done at the Slovenian end.) And honestly, the thought of contacting Fed Ex right now gives me the cooties - they are so slammed these days. He suggested WE could call a friend in America to ask THEM to contact Fed Ex. Now obviously we have many good friends in America and since our travels started, we have had to impose on them a fair amount (ie: The case of our broken window in Central Oregon-which has now been repaired thanks to Stu.)
We ran down our list of friends that we wouldn’t be totally mortified to call with this serious wine purchasing emergency and finally settled on our good friend Jeff In Portland who is a wine afficiando and who we have shared some previously fun wine purchasing adventures in France. (We will never drink a bottle of Gigondas without thinking of him and Allyson). Dave tested this theory and texted Jeff, who even at an early US hour called him right back. Jeff cordially agree to call Fed Ex and DHL. While we were still in the wine shop debating the issue, he texted to report that, hey, it’s Labor day in America and all offices are closed. So, we knew we would get no additional data to make a decision that evening, and sadly bagged the idea of receiving 13 glorious bottles of wine from Polek in Maribor back in Oregon. We dejectedly left Polek on a real downer and our dinner that night was glum. I know, I know, so it’s a first world problem……but geez, Dave skipped laundry for all this!
The next morning as we were taking off for parts unknown, we stopped by the Old Vine Shop again on our way out of Maribor. There, they assured us (again) they could in fact ship to the US and and had done so any times before. Three very nice women helped us pick out six awesome bottles, calculated our shipping and duty and we were out of there in 30 minutes and 256 euros poorer. (Trust women to ge the job done!) We shall report if our wines ever show up.
We are onto the metropolis of Bad Radkersburg!
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