What are you Wine-ing about?

“Instead of traveling on a weekend, begin your trip on a Tuesday or Wednesday, which are often the cheapest days to fly. Being flexible with timing can help with savings.”

-Gillian Tans

Sites/Topics covered in this post:  

•  Istrian Wines

Go-Date: Day 108, Friday, May 10

Lesson Learned:  Sometimes you have to change your plans dramatically due to new developments…… like the weather.

If you plan a stop along your route to visit some sites, and tour the vicinity you may not choose to do this during torrential rainfall. Šibenik was such a planned stop. Cut your losses and move along. We watched a bus load of Asian tourists struggling in high winds, slashing rain, and disintegrating umbrellas along the harbor of Šibenik’s old town and decided to roll on down the road. True, we gave up $48 for the room, but we saved $20 on parking, so that eased the pain. I can do without watching the rain sheeting down the window of a tiny hotel room. I prefer to push on to our final destination.

Second Sip of Wine

I’m not a big wine guy, I never have been. I like it with meals, but I’ve always been more attracted to hops. Here are some snippets of what pundits have to say about Croatian wines, especially those from Istria. So, on our second visit to Pula I decided to look into Croatian wines a little more closely. You can read the entire article at the link below.

https://winefolly.com/review/introduction-to-croatian-wines/

The country of Croatia is situated just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It’s no wonder that Croatia has the perfect climate for making wine and olive oil. Until recently it wasn’t a very popular tourist destination for Americans, but ever since the city of Dubrovnik was selected as the filming location for the of King’s Landing in the Game of Thrones, U.S. travelers have been flocking to this seaside country known for its rugged beauty and welcoming attitude towards visitors. Outside of Dubrovnik though, I’d still say that German visitors outnumber Americans in Croatia at least 10:1 (which goes to show how bright the Germans are collectively). This is a shame because Dubrovnik really isn’t the real Croatia. Its more Disneyland with a cruise terminal, open air souvenir shop, and parking lots that will steal more of your money than a Las Vegas airport slot machine.

As some wine experts have elegantly put it: “Croatia has many indigenous grape varieties that are not very well-known internationally, partly due to their complicated names! Croatians are not afraid of a long row of consonants in one word and have some special characters like č, ž or dž. So you might find yourself totally confused when you wish to order a glass of “Pošip” or want to buy a bottle of “Grk.”” –Dario Drmač www.thewineandmore.com.  Just keep in mind that “j’s” in the middle or end of a word are usually silent, vowels are not required, and 4-letter words may have 4 syllables. Here’s a little more about Croatian wines from people who know a helluva lot more than me about the subject.

Plavac Mali

Bold red wines with blackberry notes

Plavac Mali is the primary red wine of Croatia and grows mostly along the Dalmatian coast (think Split, Zadar and Dubrovnik). It is a wine that is rich and full of flavor, higher in both alcohol and tannin, with lower acidity, and has flavors of blackberry, dark cherry, pepper, carob, dry figs, and spice. Plavac Mali translates to “small blue,” and this grape is so important in Croatia that it was the first to have its own appellations – Dingač and Postup, which are both located on the Pelješac peninsula in South-Central Dalmatia.

Pošip

Full-bodied white wines with subtle almond notes

Croatian-born Miljenko “Mike” Grgich, who produced the winning wine at the Judgement of Paris in 1976, went back to Croatia in 1996 and started a winery dedicated to producing the finest wines with Dalmatian grapes. What did he choose? Plavac Mali and Pošip! This white wine is often crisp with flavors of apples, vanilla spice, citrus fruit, and a subtle almond note. In the past, Pošip used to grow only on the island of Korčula, but thanks to its early ripening, today it is spread around Dalmatia – Pelješac peninsula, islands of Brač and Hvar, Pakleni islands, Korlat region, and the Biokovo slopes.

Malvazija Istarska

Refreshing white wines with a spice note

Malvazija Istarska is one of the main white wines of Istria and the northern Dalmatian coast. Sometimes it’s called Malvasia Istriana, although it’s not actually the same grape as Malvasia from Italy. These wines are refreshing and usually dry, with lower alcohol content and aromas of fennel, quince, honey, apricot, and spice. Malvazija Istarska grows in Istria, one of Croatia’s popular wine travel destinations. Istria is one of Ellen’s and my favorite destinations in Croatia and there are dozens of towns along the coast you can spend a delightful few days enjoying. To us, its very much like the Peloponnese in Greece.

Grk

Dry white wines with a peppery pear note

To pronounce Grk just pronounce the three letters in a row. Grk produces dry white wines with notes of white pepper, melon, herbs, and sliced pear. The variety is indigenous to Croatia and is only found in sandy soils close to Korčula, on an island within the Srednja-Juzna Dalmacija (an island off the coast between Makarska and Dubrovnik). Grk is often called “the most feminine of all grapes” because it only has female flowers and must to be planted next to other varieties of grapes in order to pollinate (most wine grapes are self-pollinators).

Teran

Earthy, full-bodied robust red wines

This is a red grape that grows happily in Istria (coastal peninsula where Pula, Porec, and Rovinj are located) and seems to absorb the mineral, iron-like quality of the soils in the wines. Expect bold flavors of forest berries and violets with smoky meat and game-like notes. Teran generally has high tannins, and should evolve over a few years. In Italy, Teran is called Terrano.

Graševina

Medium-bodied aromatic white wines

The everyday wine of Central Europe, Graševina is also known as Welschriesling. It is one of the most popular white wine grapes in Croatia, and is so common that it is widely considered to be indigenous (grown in the far eastern part of Croatia nestled between Hungary, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina about 250 km from Zagreb). Graševina is a dry, fresh, aromatic white wine with apple-like notes.

–Dario Drmač, who runs the online wine store www.thewineandmore.com and Lada Radin at www.tasteofcroatia.org provided content for the above factoids, I just did the cut & paste and odd comments to the verbage. There are other varieties that you may enjoy, but those are the mainstays of the grape industry here.

According to Morten Smalby – www.croatia-expert.com,  “archeologist have found evidence that the earliest known production of wine took place 8,000 years ago in Europe, in Georgia (the place with Ambrolauri not the one with Atlanta). The Chinese may argue that their production predates this (but Donald Trump put a tariff on this information), but wine making is old no matter where it started. Other notable historical mentions of ancient wine production were regarding Armenia, Egypt, Persia and Greece. In Croatia there are one hundred native varieties of grapes. It takes a favorable geographical position and climate conditions for the preservation and expansion of grape varieties, though it appears that in 2019 grape production has spread to almost every region in the world.

Quotes About Wine:

“No wine can be regarded as unimportant, my friend, since the marriage at Cana.”
― Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote

“To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history”
― Clifton Fadiman

“Wine is to women as duct tape is to men, it fixes EVERYTHING!”
― Mell Lazarus, the comic strip ‘Mama’

“WINE! Because these problems aren’t going to forget THEMSELVES!”
― Mell Lazarus, the comic strip ‘Mama’

“I need COFFEE to help me change the things I can… and WINE to help me accept the things I can’t!”
― Tanya Masse

“Life’s too short to drink cheap wine…”
― Cliff Hakim

“All worries are less with wine.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“What wine goes with Captain Crunch?”
― George Carlin

“Beer is made by men, wine by God.”
― Martin Luther

“Either give me more wine or leave me alone.”
― Rumi

“I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.”
― W.C. Fields

Grape Place to Live

The first known appearance of human life in Istria dates to Lower Paleolithic, as evidenced by artifacts found in Šandalja Cave near Pula, dated to 800,000 BCE. That’s about 30 km northeast of Pula on the Bay of Budava.

Since 11th century BCE, Istria was inhabited by the Histri, a prehistoric Illyrian tribe after whom Istria was named. Their arrival marks the beginning of the Iron Age in Istria.  The country is lush, lovely, fertile and inviting. Wild grapes grow in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the northern Levant, coastal and southeastern Turkey, and northern Iran (so why not Croatia? The weather is perfect for it). Wine production is thought to have gained momentum following the development of pottery during the later Neolithic period in 11,000 BCE. The earliest discovered evidence, however, dates from several millennia later.

The earliest evidence of steady production of wine has been found in Armenia (c. 4100 BCE). Next door in Iran, jars were found that contained seals to preserve the wine and is the earliest firm evidence of wine production to date. Production spread to other sites in Greater Iran and Greek Macedonia by c. 4500 BCE. The Greeks settled Croatia, so its probable that wine production made the trip here in 400 BCE on Hvar island at Stari Grad.

Other Tidbits About Ancient Wines:

• Grape growing and wine making in China date back to between 7000 BCE and 9000 BCE.
• The oldest-known winery was discovered in the “Areni-1” cave in Vayots Dzor, Armenia. Dated to c. 4100 BCE. Archaeologists surmised that the fact that wine-making was already so well developed in 4000 BCE suggests that the technology probably goes back much earlier.
• Persian wines have been well documented and researchers have found domesticated grapes were abundant in the Near East from the beginning of the early Bronze Age, starting in 3200 BCE.
• In Egypt, the royal wine-making industry was established in the Nile Delta following the introduction of grape cultivation from the Levant (location of parts of present-day Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria) to Egypt in 3000 BCE.
• The Biblical Book of Genesis first mentions the production of wine following the Great Flood, when Noah drunkenly exposes himself to his sons.
• The Phoenicians were instrumental in distributing wine, wine grapes, and wine-making technology throughout the Mediterranean region through their extensive trade network. Their use of amphorae for transporting wine was widely adopted and Phoenician-distributed grape varieties were important in the development of the wine industries of Rome and Greece.
• Much of modern wine culture derives from the practices of the ancient Greeks. The vine preceded both the Minoan (c. 2700 BCE) and Mycenaean (c. 1600 BCE) cultures. The earliest reference to a named wine is from the 7th-century BCE lyrical poet Alcman. Greek wine was widely known and exported throughout the Mediterranean, as amphoras with Greek styling and art have been found throughout the area.
• The Roman Empire had an immense impact on the development of viticulture and oenology. Wine was an integral part of the Roman diet and wine-making became a precise business. Virtually all of the major wine-producing regions of Western Europe today were established during the Roman Imperial era.
• In the Middle Ages, wine was the common drink of all social classes in the south (southern Europe, not the Confederate states), where grapes were cultivated. Since wine was necessary for the celebration of Mass, the church was keen on assuring an adequate supply of wine for the faith. Benedictine monks became one of the largest producers of wine in France and Germany. Since the monks didn’t have wives, they had plenty of spare time on their hands to grow grapes. The Baptist did find a way to get around this alcohol-binging requirement, though, they didn’t change water into wine, they settled for changing wine into grape juice to celebrate communion. What the hell were they thinking?

Today, wine in the Americas is often associated with Argentina, California and Chile, (so some of this info found in Wikipedia was obviously written by someone in Sonoma) though that profile is changing (as of about 50 years ago) as almost every state is now in the grape business (well, I haven’t heard anything about Alaskan, Montana, Wyoming, Maine, or Florida wines). Most of the wine production in the Americas is based on Old World grape varieties, and wine-growing regions there have often “adopted” grapes that have become particularly closely identified with them. California’s Zinfandel grapes came from Croatia and Southern Italy. Hey, I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Well, I’ll have to retract what I said about Maine, Montana, Wyoming, Florida, and Alaska about having vineyards. Every state in America has a vineyard. Everybody has local wines. They even have wineries in Hawaii. I already knew they had a thriving wine industry in Canada, the Niagara Falls area is covered with grapes (and the wines are pretty good). So, its’ not much of a surprise that Maine, Montana and Wyoming all have a long enough growing season to support wineries. Conversely, farmers are growing grapes in the desert too, so, if you are in Phoenix and they are rationing your water, its because they are growing grapes in the desert. I kid you not, they even have vineyards in the desert outside of Las Vegas. So, if you are taking a beating at the gaming tables, push back and go sample some Vegas desert vino, or swing by the Bunny Ranch to ease your gambling woes. I looked it up, and the US Territories are in on the wine act as well. Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands all have wineries. Oddly, only the Northern Mariana Islands has failed to hop onto the Wine Wagon.

So, the bottom line is that everyone grows grapes and makes wine, but the vintage here in Croatia is very, very good. Our next stop on this road trip is France. I’ve heard rumors that the French dabble in wine making as well. We’ll have to check that out.