Yesterday afternoon we attended a tasting of 12 wineries from the Terra Alta region that took place in Pla de Palau, Barcelona to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their DO. This is a region that’s in the deep southwest of Catalonia, just a bit inland from the sea. Naturally, it was put on by the DO Terra Alta who have been recently ramping up their outreach. Although despite having a wine guide for the Empordà region on the other end of Catalonia, we only stumbled across this event online by accident. And, this is despite the fact that we’ve even had Terra Alta on our radar for some time due to sommelier Mònica Farré putting a selection on the wine list at La Plaça in Madremanya.

For those unfamiliar with this DO, it shares a similar history as that of Empordà and Catalonia as a whole. Wine was introduced to the area by the Romans. It saw its production go up and down through the years with a big boost in the medieval period. Phylloxera wiped out everything. They restarted, formed collectives, quality dropped, the DO body was formed in 1982, small producers started up, and the quality has been steadily increasing each year. Currently there are about 30 wineries that are part of this DO and their wines are starting to be known outside of their region.

Currently the big push from all the wineries in the region is their White Grenache (or “garnatxa blanca” in Catalan). We had been quite familiar with this grape as it’s grown a lot up in Empordà and can be fantastic. The Terra Alta growers make a very different type of wine from it though. Where the northern variant can have a wonderful body with deep mineral components, these whites were, overall, rather sweet. We were told by some winemakers that it’s due to the climate in that there is a wide variance between hot days and cools nights, thus stressing the grapes and increasing the sugar. A few of the White Grenache we tasted, though, drifted more towards minerality and deeper aspects, so it seems like it’s also something of a stylistic choice.

This event seemed to be one of the firsts they’ve done, or at the very least, it was the first for most all of the wineries at it. You had to buy a book of tickets to taste the wines, which is fine by us. But, while most of the wines were one ticket to taste, many others required two or three. Adding in to this is that they weren’t consistent as wineries such as Lafou who only have a single, reserve red wine that’s quite deep and tasty, but costs 30€ was charging three tickets for a taste. Then other wineries with 6€ wines were charging two tickets for a taste.

It created something of a mess and it somewhat missed the point that events like this are more to expose people to wines they haven’t heard of rather than make money off of them. Being that it was outside in a square with a bit of foot traffic, charging made sense given that there were no end of tourists wandering through who wanted to get drunk (in addition to a couple of dirtbag anarchists yelling at people as the day wore on). But, if they’re trying to open up new markets, this probably isn’t the best way to go about it.

Overall, it provided for a good taste of the wineries that were there. This regions feels like how Empordà was maybe 5-10 years ago and if they do things right, it could inevitably lead down the same path to greater quality and recognition. We’ll feature some more winery profiles in the coming days.

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The best way to sum up the book is on Kliman’s Twitter:

The Wild Vine, about a multimillionaire transsexual, a suicidal antebellum doctor & 200 yrs. of American history.

It’s a good read. There are some parts that I find annoying, but these are the ones quoting 19th century texts. After having survived the studies needed to receive an English Literature degree, I’ve been permanently scarred by the writing of this period. The parts by Kliman are great though. He really puts a narrative to something that could otherwise be boring: horticulture. It’s often forgotten that despite all the buzz and fancifying of wine these days, it is just an agricultural product and this book takes you back to that, in the setting of the United States. He also tosses in just enough general wine information so that those who know nothing about grapes can easily get up to speed.

If this story sounds a bit familiar, it’s because it is, in that Jasenka Piljac told the story of how Zinfandel came to be in the US, although that was originally from Croatia and most definitely not native. The Norton is indeed American born and bred. If you want to learn more about it and the quirky group around it, go have a read. I’m realizing that some day, I need to try the Norton offer from one of the wineries that make it, as this book has indeed made me quite interested in it and just how “European” in style it is.

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In Catalonia, single varietal wines aren’t the norm. Typically, what you get in a bottle, is a blend of several different varietals and is an artform performed by the enologs in the area. These blends are how life has been at la Vinyeta and we’ve documented the progress of the various wines coming to sale over the years via a number of articles, as well as in our extensive Empordà wine guide.

One of the last wines to be released was the Mig Mig, but that was still a blend, although one of only two wines: Marselan and Grey Grenache (Garnatxa Roja). But, apparently the time has come for Josep Serra i Pla to release a single varietal wine. In this case, he’s created a new bottling called, “Microvins”. There is a red and a white which are both derived from 100% Carignan.

Now, Carignan has something of a bad rap as any wine can get that’s been over planted and grown purely to produce a lot of juice. Where these Microvins are different is that they’re from very old vines. In these conditions and with the proper winemaking skill, a rather glorious wine can be created. Toss in to this the fact that these grapes are harvested from nine separate, small vineyards to create the final wine. Thus the origin of the name in that “small vineyards” = “microvins”. Don’t worry, they’re still 750ml bottles.

The white (blanc) is interesting and a great deal different than other white bottlings in the area. These grapes come from 80-100 year-old vineyards that are a bit higher in elevation, near the small village of Espolla. One of them is even terraced and they needed a good deal of recovery before they started producing enough juice to bottle. The wine is lightly tart at first and opens up, brightening until it reaches a point of pleasing minerality in the background. Good for food and good to enjoy all around on a hot day, it’s a wine that we enjoy.

For me, what really stands out is the red (negre) which is from vineyards that are 50-100 years-old. In the glass, it’s a glowing, lively red; a hue that is only found in the best of these Carignans. Upon first opening, the nose is dry and dusty. The body tosses out a stout acidity with a dry finish. As it decants, the nose gets no end of subtle. The body boasts dried fruits like figs, prunes, and apricots. After a half hour decanting, it smooths out even more, but stays incredibly light on the palate. It also is light for the drinker as you really don’t feel the alcohol and could sip on it all day long.

This line of wines is unique and is most definitely a worthy addition to Josep’s growing portfolio of bottles. If you want to taste them, you’ll have to wait a bit though as they’re not going to be fully released until September. Our tasting bottles didn’t even have labels yet. The target price is set to be a bit less than 20€. Check them out if you get the chance, although they’ll be quite limited in bottle numbers (1,000 each) which will require a stop in at the winery to get a hold of them, as well as the next Mig Mig which seems to sell out as soon as its released.

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If you haven’t heard of them yet, this four person core team of: Morana, Lada, Goran, and Marinela have, for some time now been covering the vast Croatian gastronomic scene. This is no small feat given that the geography of the country is diverse and when it comes to food and wine, there is a lot to take in from all the different influences that have crossed the borders.

It began by putting out updates to their very popular Facebook page. Then, they started up the website and app (for Android & Apple iOS) at the same time, putting out excellent, high quality content about the country. Despite having followed the wine scene for the last decade or so, I’m always pleased to find articles about new places I wasn’t aware of, which goes to show the huge value in having local writers talk about their country.

Speaking of local, their logo is something of an inside joke. Non-Croatians might look at it and think, “Why the hell does this red square have a bite taken out of it?” But, for those of us who have a Croatian passport, we know this square well as its part of the šahovnica, the main part of the Croatian coat of arms for a good 500 years. Just watch any international Croatian football match and you’ll see a good dose of this red and white checkerboard in the stadium. Once you know this, it’s really quite clever.

As Taste of Croatia is their baby and they don’t have some fancy Silicon Valley venture capitalist funding it, they’re looking to grow the project and make it self-funding. Given that the current food and wine scene in Croatia has been getting a good deal of attention lately, they’re in a very good spot to take it to the next level. What is that next level? After talking with Lada and Goran in Zagreb last month, they said it’s going to be a mix of a number of things including expanded reviews and possibly other items tied in to the main Taste of Croatia website.

However it shakes down, if you’re a food and wine lover and you aren’t checking out Taste of Croatia daily, you’re definitely missing out.

Related posts:

1. No Reservations Croatia media blitz is on
2. Wine Spectator goes Croatia crazy

In what has become something of a rarity, the San Francisco Chronicle published a very lengthy, in depth, and well-written article about Francis Ford Coppola’s restoration of the Inglenook winery. While I’ve always liked Jon Bonné’s writing, he is rarely afforded the space to really write longer articles given the Chronicle new found love of traffic-driving “listicles”. It appears that once given said space, he ran with it and wrote one of the best articles I’ve seen about the history and direction of this winery.

This is a history I know very well as I worked for Coppola about 15 years ago and could nearly recite everything by heart. Beyond drinking $3/L crap wine in college, that was really my true introduction to wine given that as an employee, you receive a massive discount off the retail price. I had my fair share of Rubicon vintages, but even with the discount it was still out of reach and all of us would stick to the Diamond series of wines that were a great deal more enjoyable in the late 1990′s.

Naturally, once laid off from the company at the beginning of 2002 due to cutbacks at the time, I wish I had taken advantage of more of those wines. This was further compounded by tasting the 2006 Rubicon last year and being utterly repulsed by what had happened to that wine as well as all the other estate wines with their over-oaked, hot, brash, points-driven character.

As noted in that Chronicle article, Coppola is a funny guy in that he’ll take off for long periods of time for projects and various people in his myriad of companies get a bit over zealous in their supposed independence. It’s good to see that Francis (everyone in the company freely calls him by his first name) was aware of what was happening and made strides to correct it.

Not having enough time or liver capacity to follow everything in France as well as what I follow in Southern Europe, I’m not familiar with the new head winemaker, Philippe Bascaules. But, in reading the tasting notes of the new vintage, it looks like everything is starting to head in the right direction. This direction I might add is gaining a lot of momentum in California as a lot of wineries are turning to the “European” style of winemaking again given that many people in the US are getting really tired of these huge red wines. I’m betting that the new and improved Inglenook will be getting rave reviews in short order for this about face and I look forward to tasting these new vintages down the road.

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What Mato Antunović is making down in the village of Oskorušno is the type of Postup that is more food friendly. With a strong brace of acidity, it really wants to be paired with a dish. It does open up a decent amount with time, but it’s more generally reserved and lighter than other Postups I’ve had.

Still, a good deep wine made from the Plavac Mali grape that, these days in Croatia is a decent price for the region.

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1. In The Glass: Owen Roe Sinister Hand 2010
2. In The Glass: Pigato di Albenga – Ma Renè 2010

While we’re still in the midst of and nearly completed with our new Empordà-Costa Brava wine travel guide, we’ve also picked up a large number of tasting samples from from the Zagreb wine fair. We’ll be putting up tasting notes as well as rundowns of Croatian wine comparisons like “Zlatan Plenković, Entry vs. Top End”, “Crljenak Showdown”, and “Borgonja: It ain’t in France”. With four cases that all made it back safe and sound due to our “patented” traveling with wine system, there’s a lot to get through. We’ll also be putting some time in to an update of our Dalmatia wine travel guide, so keep an eye out for all of this. Delicious times to come from Vinologue HQ!

Bonus points and a round on us in Barcelona to whomever can name the most wines in that photo above. And yes, you would be right if you were to say that a number of them are from Trapan. But, there is also one in that group that isn’t from Croatia.

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After Mr. Bibich’s Friday night pouring, there was another winemaker tasting event at Apetit, on Saturday. I almost didn’t go as I was, well, rather “soft” after Friday night and had missed a number of the talks on Saturday which I had meant to attend such as the Twitter tasting. Thankfully, due to the restorative powers of Jana spring water and Croatian coffee (to be honest, probably mostly the coffee) I managed to make it to this Saturday night tasting. Afterwards, I was very thankful I had.

The tasting was from Piquentum’s line of wines and was hosted by Brava Wine along with some additional bottles tossed out by Blue Danube Wine. For those who haven’t yet heard of it, Piquentum, it’s the winery of Dimitri Brečević (the fellow at the right), a French-Croatian winemaker with a wealth of experience in the French wine industry that he’s now applying to Istria while still staying true to the qualities of Istrian grapes that make them so unique. All the while, he’s producing natural wines. You can read a great interview with Dimitri by Goran Zgrablić here or April Torzewski’s account of visiting (and loving) the winery last year. We’ll definitely have to check out this re-purposed Italian water cistern wine cellar soon.

Obviously, if I’m bothering to push pixels about these wines, you’d be right to assume that they’re excellent. Malvazija (or Istarska Malvazija to distinguish it from Malvasia in Konavle) is more often than not a wine I respect than favor for my palate. This is the case with Dimitri’s Blanc 2010 in that I find it to be a most fantastically crafted wine. It has a tiny bit of minerality to the nose with a highly structured body. It’s clean in the finish and pulls out everything from the palate. For those who like Californian Chardonnays, but want it to have more character, be more food friendly and just generally more awesome, this is the wine for you. As it decants, I find that there is a slight honey and lavender aspect that comes out of it as well.

The Terre is the red, which if memory serves (as, for some reason, the notes don’t…) is a blend of Terran and Refošk. It’s earthy and deliberate in how it is wet on the palate and harking for food pairings of pasta, boar, steak, and just about anything else delicious from Istria–perhaps even truffle? One of the aspects that I appreciated more than anything was that this bottle, while plenty earthy and deep doesn’t drift in to the “rusty” character that I find Terran can sometimes flirt with.

I have to admit that I actually didn’t go through the tastings in exactly the same order as everyone else though as right after the white was poured, I popped off to Bistro Mitnica (known locally as “kod srbina”) in Črnomerec was a heaping pile of delicious meats. Once I returned, everyone was working their way through some of the other bottles that Frank of Blue Danube brought. The one that was the most amusing was a bottle of Ridge Zinfandel 1999 from California that clocked in at an “official” 16.7% alcohol. For some, it was just too much and they were pouring off their glass to happily return to Dimitri’s Terre.

Having grown up on these types of wines, I’ll always have a special spot on my palate for them, but I completely admit that they’re terrible for food pairings and if you’re not ready for them, they can be far, far too strong. Also, you simple can’t mix Old and New World wines in one sitting. It would be like having wild boar and farm-raised steak in the same meal. They’re both the same basic thing in the end, but they’re worlds apart from one another.

Otherwise, it was a splendid (and for some, a much more sane) evening spend with a great cast of wine folks from the festival. Some of this gang you’ll be hearing more about on this site, so stay tuned and top off your glass if you haven’t already.

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And it lands. In preparation for the April 23rd airing of No Reservations: Croatian Coast, Anthony Bourdain and company have expanded their Croatian episode page a great deal. Based upon their visit from back in October of last year, they’ve posted videos of truffle hunting, tuna fishing, the future of Croatian cuisine, and our personal favorite, “holy shit is that good“. But, for Croatian wine fans, the real cherry on top of the sundae is the interview with Alen Bibich.

Go have a view, or if you don’t wish to spoil your appetite, wait for the episode to air next week. We’re just coming off a huge Alen love-fest this week, so it was a welcome bit to come across this today.

Related posts:

1. A small peek at No Reservations in Croatia
2. Anthony Bourdain heads to Croatia

For those visiting the Dalmatian Coast, you will often hear the term “Balkan Hospitality” bandied about. Once seeing the Jägermeister shot tents, expensive hotels, and the menus at restaurants printed in all languages except that of good food, you might wonder, “Where is the so-called hospitality in this?” It’s still there, you just need to back away from the water a good 10km (maybe more in July & August) to find it. Venture further inland and you’ll still find it in great abundance, especially in Continental Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. Admittedly, outside the May-September boom time on the coast, it comes back there as well.

Balkan Hospitality can basically be surmised as, “host your guests as you would yourself be hosted”. Once you know people in the region, you understand what it is and how this culture, born of being a crossroads for Europe, is infectious, genuine, and dare I say, one step towards world peace–if only everyone ascribed to it. Alen Bibich and his wines are the embodiment of this.

I don’t know how Alen (no, not Alan, Anglophones) and his right-hand man Šime managed to make as much time for everyone as they did for the festival last weekend. But somehow they welcomed everyone to their table to share in their wines and then to a really fantastic party at Apetit one night.

Host your guests as you would yourself be hosted, which meant making sure that glasses were never empty and full of any one of Alen’s amazing high-end wines such as the Lučica or his new Bas de Bas in both white and red. While the later are high-ticket, they are the penultimate embodiment of Alen’s wine philosophy where he focuses on native grapes such as Debit for the Bas de Bas white. Or, his love of Syrah that you see in the Bas de Bas red which shows that it is quite a happy grape in Dalmatia. The wines open up with time and others around you.

But, it’s the structure of all the wines that makes them so impressive in how they ascribe to this model of hospitality. When I first met Alen he claimed that you could drink both his reds and whites, pretty much all day long. Last Friday we found out that that was indeed true. They’re wine for company and they’re wine for meals. They’re meant to hang around as long as your company wishes too. You simply can’t do this with the huge alcohol wines of California.

A well-known and respected enolog in Spain once told me that a good wine is: 1/3 vineyard, 1/3 cellar, and 1/3 marketing. I think you can easily scratch that last third and substitute it with 1/3 hospitality. As an example to this, yes, I could be paid to write 500 words about a wine, breaking down its virtues and what it means to me. But, invite me to taste what it is you make and host me as you would like to be hosted when visiting me, I’ll write about said wine purely as a gracious return in hospitality.

Alen, I think a great many of us who attended Zagreb Wine Gourmet Weekend would like to thank you for opening up your wines and hosting us.

Note that the header photo is actually from a tasting that happened the next night, which also deserves being written about.

Related posts:

1. Vina Bibich: The wines of Bibich
2. The Bibich 2004 Sangreal Merlot