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The San Francisco Chronicle recently reviewed a number of wines in their Wine for Every Occasion section. The good news is that they like the Bibich Debit a great deal. The bad news (or maybe the expected news) is that they found the name a bit humorous. Not to be surprised as the first time I saw a bottle of Debit I wondered what it meant. From my background in Croatian, I assume it comes from "debeo" which means "fat or thick" which is fitting given that it's a very tasty, full-bodied white wine. Of course, I could be completely wrong on this and am more than willing to stand corrected.

Invitation to a tasting at the Weinrieder estate.

Weinrieder has done it again! The Wine Enthusiast selected the Weinrieder Grüner Veltliner Alte Reben 2006 as the Editor's Choice of the new Austrian vintage and awarded it 92 points. They also liked his Kugler Riesling 2007 with 91 points and even gave his great value wine, the Weinrieder Grüner Veltliner DAC respectable 86 points. Not bad for a wine that costs less than $15. Visit our online shop now and buy them before they are gone.     Also very noteworthy, the terrific Eisweins (icewines) Weinrieder produces. If you had never tasted this specialty wine before we definitely encourage you to do so now with hisRiesling Eiswein from the Schneiderberg vineyard in Poysdorf just north of the capital Vienna. You are in for a special treat and an explosion of tropical fruit on your palate. On par with the ice wines from top Canadian producers like Inniskillin and Jackson-Triggs but much more refined and with an elegant lightness. Plus, the Weinrieder Eisweins cost a fraction less than their Canadian or German rivals.

I walked through Pile Gate in Dubrovnik, my friend Ivana leading the way down the Stradun and then off on a side street that I hadn't yet discovered in the Old Town. We arrived at a bar named Carpe Diem, sat down in the early evening and ordered. I had no idea what to order. I didn't speak Croatian and so I was ordered a glass of red wine. At this point, everything changed. The wine was the Zlatan Plavac from Zlatan Plenković.     That was in 2004 and I remember thinking it would be fantastic to learn more about these deceptively good Croatian wines, but there was nothing to be found. While beach tourism was taking off in Croatia, there were no wine brochures and there were no wine guides. People in most of the shops didn't really know all that much as wine was wine. Frustrated and stubborn, I dug and started to read every scrap of news I could find. I drank more wine. I learned Croatian. I found importers in the US like Blue Danube Wine Company, learned more, and drank more wine.     In 2007, I met my future wife who helped me to focus my interest in the wines (as she also loved wine and the Western Balkans) and plan out a trip to the region with two purposes: drink even more wines and finally write an English language book about them. After finishing the research, the writing began and over a year later, Vinologue: Dalmatia Herzegovina has emerged.     While Jasenka Pilac has the honors of writing the first English language book that is specifically about the origins of Zinfandel, we have the honor of writing the first guide to the region. It culls together everything that we learned the hard way while traveling and tells the history of the regions, the winemakers, and of course, the wines. In Croatia, we travel to North Dalmatia, the Islands, and South Dalmatia. The we head in to Bosnia & Herzegovina, specifically to the Herzegovina region. You might be asking why Dalmatia and Herzegovina. Well, that's one of the things about the Vinologue series that we're starting. We focus on a region of winemakers who all produce wine in a similar manner with similar varietals. This can easily transcend borders as we see in this case.     But, enough about the history of everything as it's all in the book. For those looking to learn more about the region or prepare for a trip to see the viticulture, the book is available now by ordering through the Vinologue site and costs $15 plus $4 shipping to the US and Canada or $7 shipping everywhere else. It's 135 pages with 20 pages of color photos as well as region maps.

Providence in L.A. features a number of our wines

Just a few quick words about goings on in the blog world. The rather exotically-titled blog, Exile Kiss has a comprehensive nice article with even nicer photographs extolling the virtues of an IRON CHEF tasting menu at Providence restaurant in L.A. They paired our Peljesac from the Dalmatian coast with "Assorted Shellfish" of squid and mussels. Earlier this summer we were lucky enough to be invited by sommelier Drew Langley to pair our wines with the exquisite cuisine of chef Michael Cimarusti at a private cooking class. We were blown away how good the food was but equally how well the Weinrieder Kugler Riesling, the Crnko Yellow Muskat and the JURIS Pinot Noir Selection paired with it, a real pleasure for our taste buds.     Also from a culinary perspective a little further south, Food GPS writes about a recent dinner at Mesa in Orange County, CA. The photos can be a bit tricky at points because they were taken with a flash, but it looks like it was a tasty meal. It appears that the meal was made even tastier by the addition of the Croatian Bibich Riserva and the Slovenian Tilia Sauvignon Blanc. Word is apparently getting out about how well these wines pair with foods.     Another blog mentions the history of viticulture on the island of Hvar in Dalmatia. For more information you can read the always informative Lifejacket Adventures who are a group of Australians living in coastal Croatia. It's a few months old now, but they wrote a lengthy article on the wines and spirits of Hvar as well. Of course, we have also written about Hvar's wines in the past too. They wines are quite, quite good, so the press isn't surprising.     Lastly, in a complete instance of navel gazing and back patting, we have to say that we were happy to be mentioned in EnoBytes compilation of Google's Top 100 Wine Blogs. Thanks for that! We'll do our best to keep it coming.

Alex working the bar.

As we mentioned previously, we were rather big fans of Sopron. It's a small, yet pretty town in a nice part of of Central Europe at the border of Austria and Hungary. The amount of quality wine that's there can be a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, there are a number of wine bars in the area to provide a more compact method to sample the region.     Kocsis Pinceszet sits just outside the old town center. Right about here on Várkerület utca. The interior of the place isn't anything to write home about with its long wooden benches and tables, but it's inviting and relatively homey. The owner's name is Alex (which in Hungarian is said more like Ow-lex) and he's a charming fellow who speaks Hungarian, German, and a good deal of English. The later of which is not too common in this area.     The best part of this wine bar is the fact that you can find just about every single wine from around Sopron (both on the Hungarian as well as on the Austrian side of the border) and Alex knows everything about all of them. He has some imports as well on a limited basis, but his real focus and love are the wines where his bar is located. Naturally, one of the most common wines he has there is Kékfrankos. He stocks the wine in various vintages from such producers as Weninger and Pfneiszl. Perusing his list and keeping the Hungary alphabet in mind, one will also find producers like Ivancsics, which is pronounced Ivanchich. If you think that sounds more like a Croatian name than Hungarian, you'd be right. There is a sizable Croatian minority in the region and a great many of them make good wines alongside their Austrian and Hungarian neighbors.     So if you're in Sopron and not looking for dental care, but rather tasty, tasty wines, stop in to Alex's establishment. It's a great way to get a flavor in your mouth for what they offer. Then you can set out to properly tour the wineries.

Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV tasting Zlatan Plavac.

...says Gary Vaynerchuk of the Wine Library TV after tasting his first Zlatan Plavac Barrique. Gary continued all excited about this find: "This wine is sensational, downright great sensational." Thanks for your kind words, Gary, you confirm what we and many of our customers already knew: There are excellent wines produced in Croatia today and Zlatan Plenkovic is one of the top producers in the country.     For details on Gary's excitement tune into the third part of the recent edition of the Wine Library TV, episode 553:     Wine Library TV, episode 553.     And if you like to encounter some really good Croatian Malvasia and Grasevina we recommend the wines made by Kozlovic and Enginji. They rock just like the Zlatan Plavac rocks. Cheers!

After a comprehensive tasting at the Krauthaker estate.

Too early in the morning, we’re plucked from our hotel in Dubrovnik and deposited at the small airport for our flight north to Zagreb. Just two hours later, we’re on our way by car to Slavonia, in the northeastern leg of Croatia bounded on three sides by Hungary, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. We’re chauffered by the cheerful 23-year-old son of the label designer for Vlado Krauthaker in the town of Kutjevo, considered the center of Slavonian winemaking. The scenery here is very different from the coast, where precipitous, rocky slopes slant down to water’s edge and even inland valleys are ringed by craggy mountain ranges. Here there are vast fields of wheat and what looks like rye, and we’re told that much tobacco, too, is grown along this 55km valley with rounded ranges in the distance, which has been called the golden valley (Vallis Aurea) since Roman times. The vineyards are planted on the south slopes of the Krndija and Papuk mountains at 200 to 400 meters elevation. The region produces 80 to 90% white wine, and is known for elegant wines from the grasevina grape, a.k.a. welschriesling. We visit only two producers here, Krauthaker and Enjingi, but if one thing stands out to us in this region, it is the commitment to experimentation and development.     Our first visit is with Vlado Krauthaker, a serious gentleman highly regarded for his leadership in regional winemaking. As we take a bumpy tour of the vineyards by car, we look to the top of the slopes to a Slavonian oak forest, part of a national park and the source of high-quality Slavonian oak barrels. Vlado Krauthaker has 24 hectares of his own, plus 42 within a sort of labor-sharing partnership that doesn’t quite come clear in translation. Seventy percent of his production is grasevina, which likes the hard clay soil. Only 7% of his production is red, but he’s planting more black grapes to achieve 30 to 40%, and is running experiments in conjunction with the university in Zagreb with 26 black grape varieties to determine what works: merlot, syrah, and cab are performing well so far. Many of the vines we see on the hillside are planted at high density in the French style, and we’re told the land is worked by horses. Everything is hand harvested.     We descend to Krauthaker’s airy new tasting rooms, where we’re treated to dozens of wines. Some of them have recently been imported to the US for the first time and are now available in New York. First is grasevina three ways:     GRASEVINA 2006 This spent 4 months on its lees with 50% ML. It has a very citrusy lemon-lime and slightly mineral nose; dry, with high acidity and light to medium body. Creamy citrus and herbs dominate the flavor. This is well done, with a nice mouth-feel.     GRASEVINA 2006, half-dry (5.5 g/l RS). This has a less citrusy nose than the dry version, with mineral; it’s off-dry with high acidity and medium body. Medium-intensity pear, lime, and slight melon on the palate. Nice, but I prefer the dry one.     GRASEVINA 2006, a special selection of old vines. This is a slightly darker lemon hue than the two wines above, with a medium-intensity citrus and mineral nose. A slight spritz leads on the palate of this off-dry wine with medium-high acidity to balance the sweetness, and medium-full body. Herbal, lemony, and nicely made.     MANZONI 2005 (riesling x pinot blanc cross, 1964) Vlado Krauthaker is involved in many experiments, including this stainless-steel fermented batch of 2000 to 3000 bottles. The wine is medium gold with medium-intensity honey and creamy lees aromas (it underwent full ML); dry with medium-high acidity and a fairly full body, slight oxidation, honey, and mineral on the palate with a long honey finish. Very interesting.     ZELENAC 2005 Zelenac is rotgipfler, grown only in Slavonia and the Thermen region in Austria and made only by Krauthaker in Croatia. This example is slightly off-dry (5 g/l RS) with high acidity, full body, and well balanced alcohol. The palate is very mineral, with white fruit and slight honey. Short to med length; well made and interesting.     CHARDONNAY “Rosenberg” 2005 This spent 8-1/2 months on the lees in oak and was bottled unfiltered. It has oak on the nose, with a slight chemical undernote; dry with medium acidity and body, creamy oak and white fruit on the palate. The length is medium and the wine will develop nicely in the bottle judging from the 2004, which now has hazelnut aromas. This is probably the best chardonnay effort we’ve seen in Croatia.     SAUVIGNON BLANC 2005 Lufthansa selected this wine to serve on their international flights. It’s made with 60% stainless-steel and 40% old-barrique fermentation. A medium lemon-gold in color, this has the intense tropical guava and lemongrass aromas of New World sauvignon blanc, with a short to medium length.     At the end of our tasting—all before lunch—we open a dozen experimental bottles of young pinot noir, which are being monitored for their progress. On our way to the restaurant in town, Vlado points out the cooperative winery where he worked for fourteen years during the Communist period before starting his own operation in 1992. After our enjoyable, light meal we make our way to Ivan Enjingi, whose winery building sits just outside the tiny town of Venje (see part 2).     Text and photos by Katherine Camargo, DWS / kcamargo@verizon.net

Gently sloped vineyards in Venje near Kutjevo.

(continued from part 1)     We have been told that Ivan Enjingi is a mercurial soul, but perhaps we’ve been immunized by our native habitat of New York — we find a generous, even gregarious man with twinkling eyes and a smooth cap of silvery hair waiting in his private cellar with a feast of cheeses and meats arranged on a barrel top. We sip Enjingi Zweigelt, a red with lovely aromatic herb, bayleaf, and red currant aromas until half of his pair of young enologists, Josipa Andrijanic, arrives. The other, Milan Budinski joins us as we wander through the fermentation rooms taking samples from the taps. It’s difficult to take notes on the hoof like this, but we taste Enjingi’s dry, late-harvest grasevina, a beautiful late-harvest Rhine riesling, about a dozen experiments and wines in development, and two real stand-outs:     VENJE 2002 Named after the town where Enjingi is based, this is a blend of riesling, pinot gris, welschriesling, sauvignon blanc, and traminac that is made only in favorable years and is matured in barrique. It has medium body and an Old World flavor: slightly oxidized from barrique maturation, very subtle oak, minerals, plus dried pear and white peach. A red version of Venje is in the making, too, a blend of zweigelt, pinot noir, cabernet, merlot, and frankovka.     PINOT CRNI 2000 This curious pinot noir has a heavy spritz in the bottle, and uncharacteristically high alcohol at over 15%, but it is an impressive wine. It is barrique matured and bottled unfiltered, with beetroot, violets, and sweet oak on the nose, plus vanilla, ripe black plums, and blackberries on the palate—medium-bodied with medium length. It’s been seven years since harvest, but I’d be interested to see this in another eight.     After tasting, we drive up the hillside to see the new event space and guest house Ivan has built, which has a lovely view of the town of Venje, the Enjingi vineyards, and the Golden Valley beyond. The building next door is where Enjingi’s barrels are made—he has a team who craft his Slavonian oak barrels in the workshop here. We also examine a machine harvester that Ivan has adapted to suit his particular requirements. Here is a man who makes no apology for doing things his own way, and the results are a startling success. We linger, talking and sipping Enjingi grappa, into the early evening, when we are forced to sadly begin our two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Zagreb and, early tomorrow, our flight to New York.     (We are happy to announce that we now carry our first wines made by Ivan Enjingi, see our wine shop.)     Text and photos by Katherine Camargo, DWS / kcamargo@verizon.net

The main winery headquarters and tasting room.

The same day that we paid a trip to the Hungarian side of Pfneisl (which is actually the separate company of Pfneiszl), we also took a trip across the Austrian/Hungarian border that no long exists due to the 2007 Schengen enlargement. After a bit more of a trip, we were able to see how wine making was for the Austrian side of things. As we quickly saw near the small town of Deutschkreutz, winegrowing appears to be going very well. The family has been making wine for over a century in this area and to date now harvests from an astounding 70 hectares (175 acres) of vineyard land. It's quite overwhelming to stand in the middle of it. This is of course made all the more impressive by the extremely modern tasting room and headquarters that they constructed, which you can see in the photo above. The structure has won numerous design awards and is often featured in roundups of impressive winery architecture.     Naturally, buildings are great because you need somewhere to age and taste the wine, but what is of course most important is the wine itself. Pfneisl offers a lovely range of wines with potent reds that are typical of the Burgenland area, punctuating their repertoire. Overall the wines are telling of a winery that has been in business for a long time. There is common consistency to everything that they do. Whether you're tasting a Shiraz, Merlot, or a Cabernet Sauvignon, you know that it's from Pfneisl. It's an admirable quality that speaks well of the wines, although I often enjoy my wines a bit more wild, which you see a great deal more in the ones from Pfneiszl in Hungary.     We had a brief tasting, but it included their 2005 Shiraz, which is aged in American oak. It's a very smooth, enjoyable wine. The flavors are consistent to the point of being a bit bland, but they stop just short, giving some strong, underlying elements. The oak is rather strong, but it does give way to subtle blackberry aromas in the nose.     The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon puts forth a lot of dark oak aromas on the nose. Surprisingly, these give way to a lovely, smooth body that makes for great sipping and could easily be paired any number of foods, especially spicy dishes like Thai or Indian curries. As the wine opens up, it develops a sweet pine quality to the nose that is very pleasing. Naturally, the finish is smooth.     We then moved on to the upper echelon wines which started with the 2005 Pentagon. This wine is a blend of Cab Sauv, Merlot, Shiraz, Pinot, and Blaufränkisch/Kékfrankos. It wasn't any surprise that after tasting the single varietal Cab Sauv, that this was once again very, very smooth. It opens up with a touch of bite coming from the oak, but mellows out with air with the body being easygoing the whole time. There is a bit of sweet berry to the finish. Oddly enough, to me it seems like the Pinot comes through quite a bit, despite it being in the least amount of the blend.     We finished with the Hexenberg. This is a 55/45 blend of Merlot and Shiraz. The aging regimen includes three years in French barrique which the first half of is in new barrels before being switch the those that are aged. We were told it could even stand for another decade of aging if one wished. Again, the wine was smooth and silky. It had a complex makeup to it that only slightly betrayed like boysenberry in the body, but to a slightly higher degree some young citrus as well, which was a surprised. The finish is dead-on clean and perfect. It's an excellent wine, but when trying to decide which I would choose between this and the Pentagon, I would have a tough choice as they are both excellent.     Everything concluded a great series of wines from an established winery. While often hard to find outside of Europe if in the area and you see a bottle, give it a try, you will absolutely not regret it a glass, or two, or... maybe even a whole bottle of any of these wines.

A tasting out amongst the Pfneiszl vineyards that started with their Sparkelina.

Pfneiszl is a young winery on old lands. Or actually, it's an old winery on its own old lands if that makes any sense. You see Pfneiszl (or Pfneisl depending on which side of the Hungarian/Austrian border you're on) is an old family winery based in both Hungary and Austria. It's just that in Hungary, the 27 hectares that made up their wine growing lands were seized by the former communist regime of Hungary in the name of collectivization. After that happened, they had to "make due" with the 70 hectares that the family kept in Austria just on the other side of the border. In 1993, these lands were returned to the family after decades of pumping out cheap bulk wine that was mostly sold to Russia. By this time, on the Austrian side they had been making very well-recognized wines and in what must be one of the most incredible gifts I've ever seen from a parent, they gave this 27 hectares to their daughters to work up and establish as a Hungarian winery.     These stories are not uncommon in the area of Sopron (pron. Shohprohn) in the far east of Hungary on a peninsula of territory that sticks in to Austria, right in to the middle of the very nice Burgenland winegrowing region. The Pfneisl sisters (they grew up in Austria, thus the spelling), Birgit and Katrin have now been running the vines for several years and bottled their first vintage in 2004. A good deal of replanting happened 10 years ago to replace a number of vines, although some of their older vines still remain. These days, they're growing Kékfrankos, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot, Sangiovese, Malbec, Carmenére, Zenit, and as amazing as it is, even some Zinfandel. Birgit's study of winemaking around the world quickly becomes evident in the diverse selection of grapes.     While they have a tasting room near the center of Sopron, they took us out to a tasting amongst the vineyards overlooking Lake Fertö, which is a wide, flat, reedy lake that is at most two meters deep. Once up in the vineyard, one can see that it creates for an excellent micro climate that allows for a great deal of sun to hit the vines all year. Overall, you can taste this in the wines, as they hold a great deal more depth than other wines from just over the hill. But, enough about history, let's talk about the wines themselves.     We started off with their take on the Sparkling White Wine, which they call Sparkelina. We tasted the 2007 vintage and found it to be not too dry and very even-tempered. It has a clean finish and while I'm not a huge fan of the bubbly in general, I found their version to be quite pleasant and pleasing to drink. From there, it was on to the Kékfrankos 2006 'Classic'. It's a blend of grapes that have been aged in stainless steel with 30% in old Hungarian barrique. The nose is very calm and mild. The body is easy to drink and rather light and seemingly typical of Kékfrankos from the region, but light blackberry tones give way to a touch of pepper and other spices that you can taste near the end and in to the finish of the wine.     It was then on to one of Pfneiszl's signature wines, which is the Tango. We tasted the 2006 which is a blend of 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 60% Merlot, and 10% Shiraz. The nose is light with a hint of vanilla and stronger blackberry elements to it. The body is smooth and the finish is pleasing. As the wine breathes more, it becomes more and more pleasing and is a wine that I would really recommend for just bout any meal as it is even-tempered and mellow, while at the same time carrying a good deal of flavor.     The Kékfrankos 2004 is a vintage that was aged in barrique for 22 months. Again, the nose has blackberry aromas to it, but it develops a slightly more complex nature with herbs coming through. A number of the aromas drop out in the body, but the berry tones stay quite prevalent and the body is a good deal more dry than the other wines of theirs we tasted, yet it is still quite pleasant.     The 2005 Shiraz has what I describe as a very creamy body which according to Birgit is from an extended fermentation period in the barrique. The barrique are French oak due to the 18 month stay in them, the wine takes on a number of vanilla qualities.     Their 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon proved to be a nice surprise. Other Cabs from the region, I've often found to be rather flat given that I've been spoiled growing up on California Cabs. But the Pfneiszl Cab is not flat at all. It is dry, but very flavorful. The body is complex and earthy. It doesn't have the "cherry nose" to it that I've often found in other Central European Cabs. Birgit said that it had just been bottled a few months previous, so it was still under a bit of bottle shock, but irregardless, it was a very enjoyable wine to drink. Perhaps this is due to the 24 months it spends in Hungarian barrique.     The Impression Rouge is a blend of 50% Kékfrankos, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 25% Merlot. There is good deal more oak to it, which is probably due to the newer barrique that are being used. The finish has a delightful touch of boysenberry to it, which was quite unexpected. It is also a delightful wine to drink with deep, woody tones.     One thing to note about these wines is that Birgit's style is to allow the wines to be a bit more "wild" in their flavors. She doesn't try to force a particular consistency to the wines and this allows them to each be their own and age as they may. While this may be a death knell for other younger winemakers, she manages to work the wines in this manner with a great deal of success, making each Pfneiszl vintage quite unique. To this end, they also give each wine vintage its own name based upon how they feel the grapes tasted for that year. For instance, 2004 was, "Cool Elegance" and 2005 was "Starling's Favorite". It's a nice touch that makes the wines have a bit more character than just a numerical year on them.

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