In 2013 komt een nieuw wijnland de Europese unie binnen: Kroatië. En nu al zijn daar de betere producenten bezig hun exportresultaten te verbeteren. Het land heeft tweemaal zoveel wijngaardoppervlak als Nieuw Zeeland: 33.000 hectare. Daar komt zo’n 60 miljoen liter wijn vandaan, waarvan tot heden maar 5 % wordt geëxporteerd. Dat zegt iets over de eigen consumptie: derde op de wereldranglijst in hoofdelijk verbruik.
Vorig jaar was Wijnwijs.eu er op bezoek en konden wij vaststellen dat het land veel potentieel heeft en al een respectabel kwaliteitsniveau heeft bereikt. Daar gaan consumenten volgend jaar meer van merken, als enkele grotere wijnbedrijven in west-Europa actief worden. Correspondent John Mariani sprak met enkele wijnmakers, die sinds de stijgende populariteit van Kroatië als wijnland zelf ook vaart achter productieverbetering hebben gezet.

“The discovery that popular California varietal zinfandel was a variant of Croatia’s plavac mali (“little blue”), helped focus attention on a country that once made 650 different wines from 130 varietals.

Another catalyst was Miljenko Grgic, who left Yugoslavia in 1958 and made his fortune as one of California’s premier winemakers under the name Mike Grgich. He returned to help modernize Croatian wineries, opening his own, Grgic Vina, in 1996.

The change from cheap bulk wine to modern viticulture has been rapid, with stainless-steel tanks introduced only in the 1990s. The burgeoning industry is full of youthful enthusiasm, typified by winemakers like 32-year-old Bruno Trapan, from the Istrian peninsula, who invested in the business in 2004 after taking a college winemaking course two years earlier.

“I had no wine knowledge before getting into making it,” said Trapan. “My grandfather planted grapes in a tiny vineyard as a hobby and I was interested. After two vintages making my own wine, I was hooked.”

Organic First

By 2005 he had purchased 5 hectares and planted a year later, experimenting with international varietals like syrah, never before grown in Croatia. By 2009, Trapan’s was the country’s first organic winery, now with 12 hectares producing everything from traditional malvasia to new entries like chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.

I spoke with Trapan and two other Croatian vintners over a dinner of lobster, crab cakes, steaks and onion rings at New York’s Porter House.

Trapan’s white Ponente Malvasia Istriana 2010, never aged in oak, had a lovely, bold aromatic nose, which came from seven hours of grape-skin contact, and an ample 13.5 percent alcohol. The 2009 syrah had an odd smell at first, but a little evaporation revealed a Rhone-like varietal character rather than the Australian shiraz style.

Porter House’s wine director, Roger Dagorn, (one of only 180 master sommeliers in the world) stocks a 2008 Dingac plavac mali ($65 retail) from Croatia’s southern coast.

‘Not All Great’

“The few Croatian wines I’ve tasted are not all great,” he said. “But I’m fond of the plavac mali for its unique, Old World earthy character, which is very pleasurable to the American palate. It has good structure, body and fruit, and enough acidity to give it balance.”

I felt the same way about this big-bodied wine with 15 percent alcohol, from the Saints Hills Winery, founded in 2006. Made in low yields, the wine gets plenty of minerality from the steep terraced vineyards in Dalmatia.

Dingac is one of the rare, cherished appellations, dating back to 1961, when Croatia was part of Yugoslavia. Saints Hills is owned by Ernest Tolj, 40, a wealthy entrepreneur and chairman of Eurocable Group, who named his vineyards after his children, Lucia, Roko and Ante, and who hired Bordeaux enologist Michel Rolland as a consultant”.