Situated in a sunny ad well-aired location, the 0.3-hectare Castle Vineyard was inaugurated on Saturday with ceremonial planting of the last few vines.

It features 1,050 vines of white Chardonnay and the red Rotburger or Zweigelt variety, picked for the site by experts from the National Institute of Chemistry.

The first harvest of the white grapes is expected for 2019, and the bottling in 2020, while the red grape harvest is to follow a year or two later.

The vineyard is expected to yield between 1,000 and 1,200 bottles of wine. These will be primarily intended for official functions and the castle wine shop.

The Castle Vineyard project reaffirms Ljubljana's title as a City of Vine and Wine, won in October 1987 from the International Wine Association in Paris at its session in Rome.

The EUR 250,000 project also marks the 25th anniversary since an offshoot of the world's oldest vine from Maribor was planted in the Ljubljana Castle Yard.