Only wine?

Everybody know that wine is very good and students have a weakness for it. So when I’m tell you that when I was on wine degustation yesterday I’m experience something special, on many faces appears slight smile. Snag lies in the fact that, equally important as the wine is place where it is made. And this place is really special.

I should start from the fact that the vineyards surrounds the Pleterje Charterhouse (Kartuzijanski samostan Pleterje) situated near the city of Šentjernej. The winery is there almost from beginning and foundation of this monastery in 1403r this is 600 years. Monastery was destroyed in 1471 by Ottoman raid. After that it was rebuilt In more defensive manner. In 1595 Archduke Ferdinand II of Inner Austria gave the monastery to the Jesuits of Ljubljana. Carthusians returned in these walls just on 1899r.

The other thing I should mention about, is this, that more important than place which is used for making wine are the people who make it.

The Cathusians order was established by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084. The name is derived from the Chartreuse Mountains in the French Alps, where Saint Bruno built his first hermitage in the valley of these mountains. Monks have theirs own rule named Statutes and combines eremitical and cenobite life. After joining the Order monks shall take the oath of silence, they cannot speak except two times a week. Their age to make these decision is beginning from 20 years old and the upper border is 54. Also contact with the outside world is limited to the minimum. So they pray, contemplate make studies, and works in his garden or at some manual trade. And they makes wine….in silent…day by day…with prey…without any words…very long time….years in the same place…alone…in harmony and in peace. Unless, of course, within the walls doesn’t appear a group of students after wine tasting. So, they living in separated little houses and in Platerje Charterhouse is twelve of them now.

This trip however embarrassed me little bit, because of that I have this order very near to my home town. Distance is only 60 km. And taking into account that active at the moment is only 22 monasteries, it’s not all widespread thing. The name of town where order have monastery in Poland is Kartuzy. I’d never was in this monastery . Once again the Polish proverb confirms ,,Other's you glorify, own you don’t know.”

In the end I say only that they making a lot of alcohols: brandies, liqueurs, tinctures and delicious wines…many types of wines….and the wines are cheap and good.

After the end...The most puzzling thing is that, when people going to see monastery where monks made oak of silent and separatly living everyone wants to see them and speak with them.

Cartusian chant: http://youtu.be/3gRtGU7koX8

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