Croatia lays claim to one of the world’s oldest wine regions, with vineyards originally planted by The Ancient Greeks. Today David Kohl highlights Croatia’s Peljesac Peninsula, located on The Adriatic Sea across from Italy’s wine region of Puglia. The indigenous grapes of Peljesac Peninsula eventually migrated to Puglia and became known as Primitivo. When those regional Italians then brought their own vines to California during the 1800’s the grape varietal evolved into what we know today as Zinfandel. A point of interest is that Mike Grgich, a renowned Croatian-American winemaker who recently died at the age of 100, was the talent behind Chateau Montelena 1973 vintage Chardonnay that won Grand Prize at the Paris competition made famous in the movie Bottle Shock. #winevideo #croatianwine #indigenousgrapes #mikegrgich
so what’s a grap export talking about
today so um if you all know me I’m very
much into history especially history of
wine so I’m going to spend some time
talking about another one of our uh our
Eastern European friends who are really
trying to make it here in the wine
business uh uh although you know they’re
probably one of the oldest wine regions
we’re going to zero in today on an area
called Croatia and we just wanted to
show you the special bottling here of
this wine you know this is a wine called
uh dyak and if you look at the label it
tells you a lot here because tells you
exactly where this wine is from so if
you look down here it’s got the regions
of Croatia but we brought it the map
we’re going to show you a little bit
about this area right here and you know
we we use our Italian map because we
want to show people the proximity of
Croatia and Italy which is we’re going
to bring up the historical perspectives
here but we’re going to go all the way
down here to this area and this
peninsula and uh this peninsula is very
uh interesting because it’s called Pac
and it’s a peninsula in the southern
Dalmatia region of Croatia it’s part of
the dnik area it’s the second largest
peninsula in Croatia and uh but what’s
interesting is the grapes here so we
want to bring a little bit of a history
to the table here we’re talking
2500 years ago and what had happened was
uh this area was planted by the Greeks
and uh they planted Vineyards in in this
area because the Greeks used to love
this U kind of Island volcanic soils
here and so that was the the origins of
these grapes and and even to this day
we’re bringing up the grapes because uh
what we want to talk about today is
indigenous grapes and and what
indigenous means they never really leave
this area because when uh the The Grapes
were obviously planted in this area
there was reasons for the Mediterranean
kind of climate that was here and also
they’re very hilly and Rocky here you
know you get these Cliffs that are
really jetting down into into the water
here into the ocean but there’s a
beautiful uh area and you can see again
the proximity to Italy and again we’re
going to explain a little bit about that
but as you zoom in I wanted to show you
at least the highlight of this map
because this is Hugh Johnson’s book and
he really does highlight this grape uh
but the the grape that we’re we’re
highlighting here is called plavac Mali
it’s called the little blue grape deriv
from the parent varieties of kosak
kalansky better known as our Zinfandel
in California this is where the origins
of zinfandel are believed to have come
and there was a a gentleman in the
United States that did a lot of research
who was a very well famous guy his name
is Mike gich uh who was a cro
native um and he has argued for the case
of his infel belonging to the descendant
of this grape here which is this plavac
mly grape uh from DNA testing but we
want to explain a little bit about those
Origins because from these from this
peninsula here this grape ended up all
the way over here which is called apulia
and we believe this is the Primitivo
grape that grows in this area so you can
see the proximity here and so when the
Italians first uh ventured to America
they were taking a lot of Vine cuttings
from this area and of course you know uh
not to not to say that they didn’t want
the original names here or even
Primitivo but became Zinfandel uh for
what we feel in America today is the is
the Godfather or the founding father of
grapes in California because during the
gold rush and if you follow one of my
other uh videos I adore and I love Z
zendel but there there’s a reason why I
love Zinfandel so much and I can see why
this grape really kind of flourishes
here in this area because it’s very arid
almost to the point of um it’s very warm
in this area as well so that’s why
Zinfandel or the grape the original
grape flourishes in heat and when you go
to California of course it’s very hot
especially in certain areas of
California and um you know Pina Noir
doesn’t grow uh all over uh Nappa is
very very warm there but what they did
plant was Zinfandel and it seemed to
have really taken off there so so when
you smell this wine I do get a lot of
the similarities to uh red Zinfandel you
get a lot of those those blue fruits and
red fruits a lot of spice tone um you
know this alcohol little 14% is not too
bad but you know when you smell this
wine I I absolutely smell red zinfindel
and it’s amazing that you know this this
scpe the origins where they actually
found the the DNA testing to come from
Croatia in here that’s pretty cool kind
of story but you know when you taste the
wine you get all that beautiful
beautiful
brambly kind of fruit that you get with
Zin and a lot of people don’t really
know Croatian wine so I wanted to
highlight this a little bit today
because um you know the grapes are very
hard to pronounce obviously the regions
are as well but you just have to do a
little bit of research on on these
labels because when you see where
they’re actually from and it’s from that
Peninsula um you know you really you
really want to highlight this area
because I I feel this is one of the best
areas if you really want to investigate
some Croatian wines uh you have to just
really look at this is the type of wine
here and then you got to look down here
and where is exactly where it’s from and
that’s the beauty of these wines but I
wanted to talk about Croatia real fast
you know we talk about the grape
Explorer and when I first used to start
out uh my uh my little uh seminars when
I was talking to people you know doing
some educational classes I actually
asked them I said can you tell me how
many grapes wine grapes wine grapes now
how do you make wine how many wine
grapes are there actually in the world
and of course everybody was guessing all
over the place 100 grapes 500 grapes
nobody really came to the total and the
total was 10,000 grapes and people would
say 10,000 grapes How can there be
10,000 grapes and I would say well in
Italy alone there are well over a
thousand grapes from this whole region
but a lot of the grapes never really
leave and we’re talking about the same
thing in Croatia a lot of these grapes
never really found homes outside of
Croatia but in in Croatia alone there
are a hundred indigenous grapes that
grow in Croatia I know you’d say 100
didn’t really realize that and we’re not
talking about Cabernet or we’re not
talking about chardonay by the way
California has
110 different grapes Croatia has as many
grapes growing here as California but
they’re not all the same because they’re
either you know from clonal dnas or
through testing and everything but we
did want to talk about Mike uh gach I
want to give a shout out to Mike he
passed pass away this past uh
2023 at the age of 100 years old and uh
I was out in California one time and
Mike was doing a seminar Mike gerit and
he was an interesting guy because he
always used to wear his little Beret you
know uh very Croatian but he did he did
explain something at the end he was
talking about you know Chardonnay and
Cabernet especially gurage Hills very
very famous he was the one that made the
wine in Montelena that actually won do
you remember the par the Paris tasting
where Montelena came first Mike gach was
actually the wine maker and he and Andre
telef who were best friends uh Andre was
Russian Mike’s Croatian but they came to
America with a dream and a passion about
how to make wine and of course we don’t
have we don’t have these what I call the
founding fathers of wine making in
California but I did want to give a
tribute shout out to the Gage family and
Mike 100 years old he passed away last
April 202 three so I wanted to give this
tribute because of the Croatian wine
industry it was in his heart it was in
his passion to teach people about wine
and there was two things that he used to
say used to say as he would always
finish up his tastings in in his
seminars he would say food and wine food
and wine those are the two things that
Mike gach would say again this is a grap
Explorer we’re here to really talk about
uh the greatness of some of our wine
making Heroes and we’re also here to
bring a lot of different grapes that
you’re not aware of and we want to bring
the attention to you cheers