steep terrain of most vineyards encourages the using of manual harvesting over mechanical. Wines in Slovenia have traditionally follow the Austrian preference of single varietal over blended wines but the production of blended wines are on the rise. While wines were historically aged in large Slovenian or Slavonian wooden cask, the trend has been to use small and varying sizes of French and Slovenian oak barrels. In the Littoral both red and white wines often go through Malolactic fermentation with the Drava Valley and the Sava Valley typically using that technique only for red wine production. In the Littoral, dessert wines are made in a passito style with the Brda region specialize in wines made from Verduc and Pikolit. In the Drava Valley region, botrytized wines are produced from Laški Rizling, Renski Rizling and Šipon and classified in a system similar to the German wine classification based on sweetness-ranging from pozna trgatev (Spätlese), izbor (Auslese), jagodni izbor (Beerenauslese), ledeno vino (Eiswein) and suhi jagodni izbor (Trockenbeerenauslese). Slovenian wine acts stipulate that all wines must be submitted to chemical analysis and tastings prior to being released on the market. After testing the wines are assigned a quality level according to a system similar to the European Union's QWPSR system-Quality Wines Produced in Specified Regions. The quality categories are the following: Table wine () Country wine with a certified geographic emblem (, ) Quality wine with protected geographic origin (, ) Premium quality wine with protected geographic origin (, ) Slovenia wine labels include the sweetness level of the wines ranging from suho (dry), polsuho (medium-dry), polsladko (medium-sweet) and sladko (sweet). The special traditional name (; PTP) designation is applied to a traditional Slovenia wine from a specific region. As of 2009, the PTP wines in Slovenia are the Karst wine Teran from the Slovenian Littoral, the Lower Carniolan wine Cviček, the White Carniolan wines Belokranjec and Metliška Črnina, and both the red and the white Bizeljčan from Bizeljsko-Sremič. References External links Slovenian Wine Portal The story of viticulture in Slovenia