CROATIA: Wine Tasting

Who knew Croatia produces great wine and competes with the best in the world wine market? 

I certainly didn't. 

The lack of common recognition is because the producers are small and locals consume a large portion of it, which leaves little for export. 

There are 3 main wine regions and more than 300 geographically defined wine districts. They produce mostly white wine in the north with red and white wine in the south.

 

 

Wine production in Croatia dates back to the ancient Greek settlers in the southern Dalmatian Islands about 2,500 years ago.

When the Roman Empire controlled the area wine production was more organized and wine was exported to other parts of the Roman Empire.

Amphora's were found in Roman shipwrecks. 

Then in the 15th century when the Ottoman Turks controlled the area they had strict anti-alcohol laws as part of the Islamic law. However, the Ottoman Empire was tolerant of Christianity, and the Catholic church traditions, so priests and monks were permitted to continue making wine for church services. 

We decided that just north of Varazdin very close to the border with Slovenia seemed like a great place to start tasting Croatian wine.

 

The first place we went to was a family operation, where the son now works the vineyard. His wife  served us in their new tasting room and was pleased to practice her English. We were thrilled because her English is far better than our Croatian.

 

 

We are trying to travel light and only bought a couple of bottles of white wine and cheese from her. To our surprise, she generously gave us a complimentary bottle of red wine.  

At the next winery we encountered a very pleasant woman that spoke zero English, so, we were all on par with each other's language skills. Which was not a good thing. We tried Google Translate, but, it just didn't seem to work for us, probably because the internet connection wasn't strong enough.

She very kindly went to her car, motioned to us to follow her, and off we went. Enroute we did discuss if this was a wise idea, following a stranger into the unknown, and concluded it was probably ok. We didn't really think anyone would be interested in two clueless Grey Nomads.

She took us to the winery's tasting room, on a hill overlooking the area. We SCORED!!!

We also sampled the local food offerings.

We could see the Slovenian border from our vantage point. 

And it was an awesome spot to watch the sunset.

Conclusion: We must keep trying Croatian wine!!! 

Four thumbs up!!!