Sailaway Croatia

The ancient Greek settlers had their first vineyards in Croatia in the 5th century BC. They had them mostly in the south on islands Vis, Korčula, Hvar…

After the Greeks, came the Romans and made the production more organized. As the Croatians arrived and settled the area, they learned from their predecessors and wine production continued to expand.

 Nowadays there are two distinct wine-producing regions in Croatia. The continental region in the north-east of the country produces rich fruity white wines. On the north coast, Istrian wines are similar to those produced in neighbouring Italy, while further south production is more towards big Mediterranean-style reds.

In the past years Croatia is getting more recognized as one of the best winemaking countries of the world as the 2016 Decanter World Wine Awards suggest where Croatian wines won 63 medals! The same year USA today readers proclaimed Croatian wines among the best 10 in the world.

Some wine sorts grow exclusively in this part of the world such as Grk and Vugava.

Red wines:  Dingač, Postup, Babić, Plavac mali( similar to Zinfandel)

White wines:  Malvazija, Pošip, Graševina

For a long time Zinfandel was known as California’s “mystery grape.” It has also been long considered an “all-American” varietal; since as far as anyone knew. During a visit to Italy in 1967, however, a U.C. Davis plant pathologist named Austin Goheen took note of a vine grown in Italy’s Apulia region that bore an outward resemblance to Zinfandel. In southern Italy, this grape was called Primitivo. But even in Apulia, Primitivo was largely unappreciated: at the time it was used primarily for anonymous blending into other red wines.

Cuttings of Primitivo were brought back to the U.C. Davis for further study in 1968; and although the viticultural professors were fairly certain that Primitivo was identical to California’s Zinfandel, it was not until 1993 that DNA profiling techniques established this fact beyond a shadow of a doubt: Zinfandel and Primitivo are two clones of the same grape.

Following a clue furnished by a Dr. Lamberti of Bari (in Apulia, Italy), in 1977 Professor Goheen crossed over the Adriatic Sea to Croatia, where he obtained cuttings of still another strikingly Zinfandel-like vine, known there as Plavac Mali.