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We arrive by ferry on one end of the island of Korčula and are picked up by Marija Mrgudic and her son Boris, who drive us to the ferry dock at the other end of the island. This is a sneak preview only—we’re leaving the island immediately for Orebic, on the mainland, and will return to Korčula in a day or two. Orebic is a waterfront town on the edge of the Pelješac peninsula, where the renowned wine producing areas of Dingač and Postup cling precariously to hillside terraces overlooking the Adriatic. In terms of prestige, Dingač and Postup are the Napa and Sonoma of Croatia. Marija Mrgudic and her brother Niko Bura and their families are a leading wine producer in the area, under the name Bura Estate Winery. Boris is in his twenties, and does marketing and PR for the winery while also working in marketing for a local hotel group. He spends his weekend driving us through vineyards, crisscrossing the Pelješac, and talking with us about the growing private wine industry and rampant experimentation in the region, notably with plavac mali’s cousin, zinfandel.     (Quick digression on pronunciation: The letter ‘c’ in these Croatian place names tends to be pronounced ‘ch’ or sometimes ‘tz’. Very approximately: ‘ding-gotch’, ‘or-uh-bitch’, ‘kor-chula’, ‘pell-yuh-shotz’.)     Our Lady of Angels     First thing in the morning, Marija and her spicy friend Anita, a lawyer and artist, take us up the hill above our waterfront hotel to the 15th-century Monastery of Our Lady of Angels, which offers one of the best views of Korčula, across the water, but also tells us much of the history of Orebic and the families here. This was a shipping town, and the houses along the waterfront belonged to the ship owners and captains, and still have in their front gardens some of the exotic specimens of plants brought back from their travels in the early 20th century. Back during the Venetian empire, when Korčula was controlled by Venice and Orebic was part of the Dubrovnik state, priests and others would use the hillside monastery to observe goings on in Korčula and send smoke-signal reports by relay to Dubrovnik. Outside the monastery is a captain’s cemetery, where local sea captains and other townspeople were buried after there was no more space in the cloister. In the cloister, bodies were buried “standing up,” to conserve space—the stones over their graves are about 2-1/2 feet square. Also there is the gravestone of one of Marija and Niko’s earliest ancestors in this region, from the seventeenth century. Etched into the gravetop stone is an outline of the pointed spade used even back then to plant grapevines in the rocky soil.          The Dingač and Postup Vineyards     We drive with Boris through the vineyards on gravel roads almost as precipitous as those on Hvar. There are about 1000ha of vines on the Peljesac peninsula, with about 60ha in Postup and maybe 75 in Dingač—much of the balance is in the valley, which produces table-wine grapes. The vineyards in Dingač (shown top, descending to the Adriatic) and Postup (shown below) are all built on terraces, some only one or two plants wide. The slope is so steep here that, when working certain terraces, the soil tiller has to be roped to the axle of a truck on the road above to keep it from tumbling down the vineyards. The producer Bura owns just over 2 hectares of vineyards. Their plants yield up to 1kg of fruit per vine on the slopes, but higher up, under harsher conditions, the vines will yield an average of only a half kilo per vine.     These hillsides used to be worked with donkeys who would haul grapes over the top of the mountain to the winery in pannier baskets, making maybe three trips a day. Likewise, they would haul the wine back over the mountain to the port of Trstenik for shipping to Europe. In the 1970s, a rock-walled tunnel, like the one on Hvar, was cut through the mountain, making the journey to the winery much easier by truck.     (Also check out the wines made by the Dingač Winery in our wine shop.)          The Famous Grgić     On a promontory at the mouth of the incredibly beautiful, tiny port of Trstenik stands the Grgić winery and the home of winemaker Kresimir Vuckovic. Miljenko Grgić, a vanguard California wine maker and head of the exclusive Grgich Hills Estate in Rutherford since 1977, famously returned to his Croatian roots in the mid-90s, and opened a winery here. (Note the tiny difference in the Croatian "Grgić" and the American "Grgich" spelling of his name.) We drop in very briefly and taste:     POSIP 2005, made from grapes bought from Korčula, cold fermented, with 3 months in new French oak. On the nose there is pear and pineapple. The light oak on the nose turns more prominent on the palate, with white fruit flavors and a shortish pineapple finish. This is clearly an international style wine.     PLAVAC MALI 2004. A fairly intense raisin and herbal plum nose leads to flavors of plums, blueberries, tobacco, and subtle oak, with a medium-length plum and tobacco finish. Neither is available in the U.S.          Eating Local     For lunch Boris drives us into the valley to the tiny town of Kuna, where the Antunovic family runs an agriturismo, where they raise donkeys, sheep, fruits and vegetables, and produce their own prosciutto. This is evident in the Antunovic restaurant, found by stepping into a narrow pedestrian alley and up a few stone steps. It’s a wonderful, dark stone room with beamed ceilings hung with prosciuttos, bacon, and a pig foot here and there. The fresh red roses on each table flanked with benches are family produced as well. We’re offered the traditional tiny glass of grappa with herbs as we walk in—also Antunovic production, along with the dried figs, crystalline with natural sugar, that we eat with the grappa. (We later buy a package of these, strung on string with bay leaves, to take home.) The white wine with lunch is a local variety made from rukatac or marastina, two names for the same grape. It’s soft and pleasant, especially with the rustic homemade food. First we’re presented with plates of home-cured anchovies, and a platter of pickled onions, home-cured olives, prosciutto, cheese, and thick, dense bread. Then there’s a local stew variation from this area of the Pelješac, called pikatic—basically lamb liver and intestine in a heavy, meaty gravy—delicious, but as we discover later, not for the weak of stomach. We also have grilled beefsteak over roasted potatoes and vegetables with a simple plavac mali. And for dessert, with a local sheep cheese that is steeped as a wheel in olive oil, we try a good quality plavac mali (not available in the States):     VEDRAN KIRIDZIJA DINGAC 2004: a medium-extract red that smells of the herbs on the local hillsides, pine, and a light, sweet oak; medium-bodied, plum, blueberry, and herbs on the palate, and a medium length.     Tasting at Matusko     We drive ten minutes to Potomje, at the inland end of the tunnel. This is the location of the still-operating large cooperative winery where growers were obliged to take their grapes during communism. Just down the lane are Matusko and Bura Estate. Matusko is a much larger producer than Bura, at 500,000 liters of total production, and has a shop and cellar where tours can come and taste. Mato Matusko is Marija’s cousin and looks like a movie star cowboy. He is president of a group of eight or so Dingač producers who are trying to create a wine consortium and tourist trail. As for the grapes, Matusko buys from partner-growers according to the position of their vineyards and the quality of the fruit. He provides pesticides, etc., to his partners, but says that the leading producers are heading toward organic farming in anticipation of Croatia’s EU membership. In his cellar, we taste three of his Dingač wines, from 2005, 2003, and 2001. The 2005 is not yet bottled, but promises to be excellent. I find a clean grapey aroma, still-strong acid and tannin with a soft sweet oak on the palate, sumptuous black fruit, and a long and plummy cocoa finish. The 2003 has a brandy/raisin aroma, pleasingly full extract, deep plum on the palate, and the same dusky cocoa-plum finish. Again, the oak is sweet and subtle. The 2001 sits in a barrel at the side of the tasting room. Mato has reserved this for himself, and for good reason—it’s rich and syrupy like aged balsamic. None are available in the States.     Text and photos by Katherine Camargo, DWS / kcamargo@verizon.net

The next morning, we set off for the island of Krk, driven by Antonella. Driving east toward Rijeka, we pass Tuscan-looking hill towns and a public forest at the side of the small, local highway, which Antonella tells us is a truffle forest where locals go to try their luck. There is a controversy about continuing public access to the forest, which the truffle hunters consider their right. At Rijeka, we need to take a sharp right turn and head south, but first, we need to get past Mt. Ucka. There's a tunnel through the mountain, but we decide to go over it, and head upward at a steep angle along switchback curves, past tiny, five-house towns, through the forest. We stop as the road starts to slope downward again, to look out over the Adriatic toward Krk to the south and Rijeka below us (shown), situated in the dog's-leg turn where Istria becomes the Kvarner region of northern coastline, mercilessly blown in winter by the bura, Croatia's version of the mistral winds. First we drive through the resort villas of Opatija, playing a game of "if I were in the market for a luxurious Adriatic home..."--then it's industrial Rijeka, and, very soon, the bridge onto Krk.     Welcome to Krk     The northern tip of the island, where the bridge is, is all but completely bald--scoured by the bura. We drive the road down the middle of the island and stop somewhere about halfway, on the side that faces the mainland, at the winery of Anton Katunar, where we'll stay the night in the winery guest room.     Anton Katunar is robust and outgoing, happy to spend the day showing us around, disappearing every so often to tend to some aspect of his business that continues around him. Tomorrow there will be a group of 300 tourists at the winery for a tasting lunch, and the big group presentation rooms need to be arranged. Indeed, there are large facilities for group visits here, both inside, with a view of the vast valley vineyards, and on a large roofed terrace outdoors. Tour groups are a way of life for many Croatian wine makers.     Behind the winery in the valley are 10 ha of vineyards planted in slightly iron soil. Anton tells us the island used to have four or five thousand hectares of vines but is now down to about 200 ha. He himself is expanding as part of a Croatian government incentive program to plant 15,000 ha more grapes, half in the coastal region, in the next two years. Anton has found a south-facing limestone vineyard in the south of the island. On his computer, he shows us aerial maps of the vineyard that show completely white on top of the hills due to all the white rocks lying on the surface, then mixed tan and white on the slopes, then dark green in the valley. He shifts the map to the top of the hill and zooms in to show us odd-shaped patches of tan/green among the stark white where people, doubtless over years, have laboriously cleared the rocks to make the land usable. Rocks seem to be a theme here: All over the central part of the island where we are, between Vrbnik and Krk town, we see massive rubbles of stones lying naturally on the landscape as if dumped there by the truckload. Where people want to graze sheep--without letting them wander in flocks along the road--or grow olive trees, they've cleared small patches of land by shifting the rocks to wide-based piles with more formal stone walls built on top, leaving small pools of dusky green grass between wide, six-foot-high rock borders. Anton also shows us an aerial overlay showing ownership of the land. Many hundreds of people own tiny strips of the hillside, sometimes in pieces only 100m by 30m, because of the way the land is subdivided between each child in a family, down through generations. Anton has had to track down hundreds of people to acquire his parcel, some of them no longer living in Croatia.     Anton produces 80% žlahtina (he makes 150,000 liters out of a total 900,000 on all of Krk) but he's developing his red line based on syrah and grenache. We go to an attractive underground tasting room lined with bottles, where we're served lunch during our tasting of his line--a brilliant spaghetti with small, tender, sweet scampi and a few tomatoes and a lot of olive oil of Anton's own production, full-flavored and spicy. The pasta really plays up his entry-level žlahtina. Then we proceed to a large platter of grilled seafood and vegetables--langoustines with the heads and claws on and saltwater still in the shells, large squid with thick bodies, roasted red and yellow peppers, eggplant that has soaked up the amazing olive oil like a sponge. Then there's local sheep and cow cheese, of which I favor a rustic parmigiana-like piece with nice rennet crystals in it. It's beautiful with the overripe melon of Anton's chardonnay (not available in the States). Wines available in the US are:     ŽLAHTINA 2005: Medium-low acid (less than 5%), medium body with a floral nose and white fruit on the palate. It's very round but hasn't undergone malo, slightly mineral and slightly oily in an appealing way. It's a simple wine, but it truly shines with the seafood.     "ANTON" 2005: 85% syrah plus three indigenous varieties (debejan, brajdica, sansigot) matured in large old Slavonian oak barrels: This has a black-fruit nose with medium acidity, body, and tannin and very nice fruit with medium extract. It's is a nice fruit-forward style of wine that's more accessible and immediately pleasant than many of the other reds we've tasted.     "ANTON" Reserva 2004: 50% grenache, 5% syrah, plus the three local varieties above, with one year in oak and one year in bottle. The tannin and acid are already mellow, and the wine shows medium-intensity black plums, blueberries, nutmeg, fresh oak, and a berry-spice finish. It's a well made wine of only medium length, but it's a pleasant fruit-forward style, and it drinks perfectly now.     After lunch, Anton explains to us a bit about the famous origin-of-zinfandel research. Crljenak (churl-yen-ack) is the local grape that started it all. According to Anton, crljenak is identical to zinfandel and primitivo, and stepfather to plavac mali, with an indigenous grape as the other half of the parentage. We find that everyone we ask has their own interpretation of the zinfandel-plavac mali relationship. Meanwhile, the same local Croatian scientist who was studying the crljenak grape, and who helped American Carol Meredith on her DNA research tour in Croatia, is now studying the origins of zlahtina and other assumed indigenous varieties on Krk. Žlahtina is native only to Krk as far as anyone knows; very little is grown on the mainland but it's unknown whether it's grown under another name elsewhere.     The Medieval Town of Vrbnik     After our hours-long lunch, Anton takes us down the street to Vrbnik, where he was born and grew up. Old Vrbnik is perched on a hill overlooking the Adriatic channel between Krk island and the mainland. As we walk up the hill to the old town, now occupied in large part by weekenders from elsewhere, we encounter one of the local priests, whom Anton knows. This is a treat, as we're brought into the rectory and shown a massive book hand-lettered in Glagolitic script (an early relative of Cyrillic) that was finished in 1462, a decade or so after Gutenberg first started printing. Sections begin with figural display caps showing a biblical figure rendered in red, blue, and green ink, plus liquid gold. (I can't believe I'm touching something this old.) We continue up the hill, through tiny passages that let through only people or motorbikes or the mini-tractors used here that are no larger than a ride-on mower but shaped exactly like tractors. The agate stones of the streets are worn so smooth after centuries that crosshatching was incised into them maybe twenty years ago for renewed traction.     Then we go across the island to Krk city, where Anton lives now. He shows us the various Roman gates of the city, some of which are underground at the site of what is currently a subterranean bar/café. We have dinner with Anton's son, Tony, and the owner of the harborside restaurant we're in: platters of local sliced cheese, olives, tuna, sardines in salt and in vinegar, octopus salad, and pizza-dough bread--plus Anton's žlahtina, and his "Anton" syrah blend with the roasted island lamb on a bed of roasted peppers, potatoes, and carrots. On the way home a jolly Anton careens at 100kph along the winding country roads, freely using the oncoming lane to soften particular curves, and slowing only slightly for a flock of 15 sheep who scurry out of the way, bells dingling. In the pitch-black countryside at our winery room, we watch a lightning display, then retire in preparation for a long drive to Split tomorrow.

We drive through Slovenia toward Istria, the area just below Trieste, Italy, that was part of Italy for twenty-five years until the end of World War II. As we approach Croatia, the Germanic-looking houses and barns and the typical hay drying racks--a ladderlike wooden rack open to the air but protected beneath a roof--disappear, and we no longer see maypoles in the little towns we pass. Our destination is Porec, about a third of the way down the western coast of Istria. It's a pretty resort town with bars and restaurants lining the waterfront street on the land side, and luxury power yachts lining it on the water side. We're here to join a group from Vinistra, the Istrian wine trade show that is going on this weekend, on a pleasure tour by boat. Our hosts are three prominent producers, Kozlovic, Degrassi, and Matosevic, who have been working together to build an Istrian wine brand closely linked to tourism in the area. As the boat makes its way south along the coast to Rovinj, a beautiful medieval fortified town crowned by a church, we sit on the top deck in the frigid night air sipping the wines of our hosts and talking with Marko and his winemaker, Jurij Brumec, who has come with us, as well as writer Sam Gugino and his wife, Mary Lee, from Philadelphia, who are on their way to Slovenia to visit Movia for Wine Spectator. By the end of the night there is singing and dancing down below, and someone has brought a marvelous pastry typical of the town of Rab: a spiral tasting of almond paste and orange rind that is a marvel with Kozlovic sweet muscat. We make our way to Hotel San Rocco, in Umag, back north toward Momjan, where Gianfranco Kozlovic joins us in the morning to take us to his cellars.     At the Kozlovic Cellars     Momjan is a small town located on the hilltop above Valle--the valley where Gianfranco, his business-manager wife, Antonella, his family, and perhaps five other people reside. On our way there, we turn off the road and drive through vineyards up the side of a hill, getting out to examine the old-vine malvasia that goes into Kozlovic's Santa Lucia bottling. It's about ten in the morning when we settle in Gianfranco's tasting room next to the winery.     For clean, well made wines, Kozlovic is one of the leaders in Istria. About 60% of Gianfranco's production is from malvasia, the typical white grape here. Like most Croatian producers, he can easily sell each year's small production within his own country, with the influx of European and other tourists during the summers. A few producers choose to build an international reputation by exporting a small amount of wine; Kozlovic sends 15-20% of his production into the surrounding European countries and the U.S. (Usually we have his Malvasia available in our wine shop, sometimes the Othello as well). Kozlovic Malvasia 2006, which is about to be bottled at the time of our tasting--has medium hay and white fruit on the nose, an unusually high acidity for malvasia, which is prone to the opposite problem, a medium body and a palate of white fruit with a slight mineral note and an herbal finish.     Kozlovic "Santa Lucia" 2004 malvasia is made from the forty-year-old vines we walked through in the morning. Ten percent of this production is matured in the acacia barrels often used in Istria, with another 10% in French barriques, and the balance in stainless steel tanks. The wine is a medium straw gold with a beautiful pronounced nose of honey, apricot, and pie crust. A lovely minerality comes out on the palate and carries through on a long finish. This wine is a brilliant pairing with the heady animal flavor of two-year-old thick-cut prosciutto cured by Gianfranco's father. Later we taste the Santa Lucia 2005, not yet bottled, which has an earthier nose than the '04 and a more forward minerality, and shows green pear and honeysuckle on the palate--this will be beautiful.     Kozlovic "Othello" 2003. This red wine of 70% teran, 15% merlot, and 15% cabernet is not produced every year. It is an unfiltered deep purple, with aromas of plums, blueberries, and deep-black ripe cherries. An inky, high-extract wine, with black fruit carrying over to the palate, slight beef-broth and herbal notes, soft oak, and a long finish.      The Kozlovic 2006 Muscat has just been bottled, and I remember it fondly from the previous evening, when it so pleased me with the almond pastry from Rab. Its sweetness is not cloying--in fact, the wine has a slight spritz--and the expected orange-blossom aroma of muscat has more of honeysuckle in it, with orange and slight licorice notes on the nose, joined by ripe pear on the palate. Fresh and light.     Kozlovic "Dulcinea" 2004, a late-harvest muscat made with 20% raisined grapes, is less sweet than the muscat, earthy, with a light floral quality and fresh apricot on the palate.     Gianfranco Kozlovic is not only ambitious for the wines of brand-Istria, he's also clearly driven to constantly improve his own wines. "Every day the consumer asks for more, and we must give more. The same quality is not enough." Later, at the Vinistra trade fair, we see just how many other producers are striving for a high-quality image for Istrian wines.

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.

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.

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.

...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!

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

(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

So, what is Plavac Mali? Where is Plavac Mali? How do you even say, Plavac Mali? Let's take a look at all of these items as we delve in detail into this particular grape.     Plavac Mali (pronounced Plahvahts Mahlee) is a red grape varietal that is native to Croatia and more specifically, native to Southern Dalmatia. This is a strip of land that has Bosnia Herzegovina to the east and the Adriatic Sea to the west. It gets an obscene amount of sun throughout the year, so Plavac Mali is a happy grape to have Dalmatia as it's home.     By far and away, Plavac Mali is the dominant red grape in Dalmatia. Others like Merlot, Shiraz, and a number of minor native grapes pop up here and there, but inevitably, if you see a field of red wine grapes, they will be Plavac Mali. It wasn't always this way though. Many, many years ago, there was another grape that enjoyed the Dalmatia summers which was called, Crljenak Kaštelanski. It has since been discovered that this wine is one and the same with Zinfandel in California and Primitivo in Italy. It just happened that as history went, Crljenak Kaštelanski didn't have the staying power of Plavac Mali and it's actually the case that while the Croatians loved the taste of Crljenak Kaštelanski, it can be a tricky grape to grow in the area. Thusly, they crossbred it with Dobričić and Plavac Mali was the outcome, which has grown far and wide over the rugged karst that forms the Croatian Adriatic Coast.     As to how Plavac Mali tastes, there isn't any one way to describe it. It varies whether it was grown in the north, the south, the mainland, the islands, or even by different neighbors. When grown in more of a New World, California style, it can pick up Zinfandel qualities, being a very deep, intensely flavorful wine full of fruit in the front of it. When grown in the traditional manners, the wine is a good deal lighter. The body isn't as thick and the finish can be very smooth. This allows it to be paired very well with meals.     My personal preference for the wine are the years where the vines get a great deal of sun with little to no rain. 2007 was a year such and the wines that I tasted in Dalmatia last year as they were aging showed all the signs of being strong, flavorful, and extremely welcoming to those of us accustomed to New World characteristics. Even still, the winemakers of Croatia tend to hold back a bit and at around 14% alcohol at most, the Plavac Malis we'll be seeing will pair better with most any meal than the California Zinfandels that can sometimes hit 19%.     If you're curious to taste this for yourself, check out Plavac Mali today.

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