With sips that offer sense of place, Croatia rebuilds its wine reputation

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      I’ve just returned from my first trip to Croatia and I come bearing good news: Croatians make plenty of delicious wine!

      I was invited by the crew from Brač Island’s Stina Winery and the Wine Syndicate, their local importer, and I was accompanied by a small group of Vancouver-based retailers and sommeliers.

      Although I’ve never visited a global region knowing so little about it, I did have a bit of context to go on before my plane took off. I’d tasted a few of Stina’s wines before at the Vancouver International Wine Festival, and in 2016 they participated in Top Drop Vancouver, the annual terroir-driven wine event I cofounded a few years back. Granted, at that event I find myself running around ensuring that everything is going to plan, so I didn’t really get a chance to swirl, sniff, and sip with them.

      Of course, they have an interest in bringing a group like us over. We are all storytellers in one way or another, and it’s challenging to tell their story when we’ve all had such limited experience with Croatian wine. And with indigenous-grape-variety names on their labels like Pošip, Plavac Mali, Malvazija Istarska, and Grk (that one’s not a typo!) not ringing any bells for most of us, this trip was like being in wine school all over again.

      There is a long history of wine-growing in the country (we’re talking more than 2,500 years), but constant political fluctuations, battles, and wars over many years rendered the industry into one that is sorely lacking in consistency and cohesion. Since the successful outcome of the Croatian War of Independence, the industry has been rebuilding with many native grape varieties like those mentioned above, along with international household names like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Riesling.

      Most of the wines I tasted on the trip, which included those from other wineries during visits and the first-ever Dalmatian Wine Festival, offered a solid sense of place—and what a place!

      The most jaw-dropping setting we encountered was a mountainside of Stina’s steep trellised vineyards planted in crushed limestone with high iron content. The plantings were Plavac Mali, a hearty red-grape variety loaded with dark berry fruit that would easily please fans of both Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Those southwest-facing vineyards have a stunning view of the Adriatic Sea, which provides breezy aromatics that meet those of the wild oregano, mint, and thyme that grow in the area. It could be power of suggestion, but I felt I could discern some of those notes while tasting their wines made from the variety, like Stina’s Plavac Mali Majstor 2011 ($62.99, B.C. Liquor Stores). The broad shouldered red has opulent blackberry and pomegranate fruit, with a good dose of earthiness along with dusty thyme notes and a pinch of heat on the lengthy finish.

      A little more inland, at a higher but flatter elevation, was the winery’s Pošip vineyard, planted in a sea of chunky white rocks as far as the eye could see. (It felt as if we were on the moon.) So rocky, in fact, that special machinery had to be used years back to break up the rocks so vines could be planted in the first place. The Pošip variety sits somewhere between the characteristics of a Chardonnay and a Viognier, with plenty of apples, citrus, some nutty notes, and a good crack of minerality from all those stones.

      Stina’s Pošip 2015 ($52, Village Liquor Store) carries plenty of yellow apples, muddled lemon, young almond, and a gentle salinity. Although the price is up there, it’d be a perfect special-occasion wine to accompany a Dungeness-crab or spot-prawn feast.

      Another Croatian charmer I’ve tasted that should dovetail well with our West Coast seafood bounty is Coronica Malvazija 2014 from Istria ($38.99, Everything Wine), a pretty white overflowing with fresh-plucked jasmine, lemon blossom, fresh lime, and a little mandarin orange.

      To get a sense of Croatian terroir without breaking the bank, Stina has a 2015 Cuvée White blend of Pošip and Vugava (a similar indigenous white grape with a little more stone fruit), and a 2015 Cuvée Red blend of Plavac Mali, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot: a good slug of peppery purple fruit and fresh herbs. Both are at B.C. Liquor Stores for $19.49 a pop.

      Both Stina and Coronica will be among 36 other global producers at our next Top Drop Vancouver Main Event tasting on May 18, both with principals in attendance who can answer a hell of a lot more questions about Croatian wine than I can! For information and tickets, go to the Top Drop website.

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