 Welcome back to exotic wine travel. I am your host Matthew Horky. Hi, I'm Sharon Tan. Welcome back to the show We're gonna talk about C aged wines. Have you ever had wines aged in the sea before? Have you? Yep You want to talk about your first experience when we first had a C aged wine actually? Actually part to our wine career. We had our first CH wine. I think that was maybe in 2014 Yeah, yeah, so we were at a Spanish restaurant and the famous wine maker Raul Perez was in Singapore We Didn't really know much about him back then as well He turned up for the wine dinner and he opened a bottle of one of his most famous wines It's called sketch made from alberino and an H in the sea So again, that was like, you know, they just told us oh, it's H in the sea We didn't even care about that sort of information back then. We're just like, oh, yeah, give us the wine But it's not that the wine was really good. It really caught our attention. It's got this very beautiful salinity Yet it was to really battle ends by what we consider, you know, the mineral flavor and the fruit flavor So that was our first encounter with CH wine and then we came to Croatia Well, you know, it's been in the in the recent years It's been trendy all over the world to especially the Mediterranean to age the wine to the sea The season anaerobic environment. It's dark. It's constant temperature constant pressure So the lines are said to evolve at a at a constant pace I guess so to speak and we actually have bumped into a guy who actually has an underwater cellar here in Croatia Marco Ducewicz from Adriatic Shell and we visited we visited the underwater Underwater winery several times. I've actually dove there. We've pulled we've pulled the bottles out of the sea We've tasted bottles of the same vintage the same year aged in the sea versus the sea You want to talk about the project some of the observations you've seen? Sure. I mean for what the two of We didn't just taste the wine from Marco as well We also tasted wines made from Italian producers couple of sparkling wines and even in some of the big shuttles and In France and Bordeaux. They are actually aging wine underwater Back to the coral wine project by our friend Marco and Croatia We did very interesting Extensive comparison test tasting with him before one wine that stood out in particular for me was a pinot noir made in Slavonia and Croatia and I think I think that was a really good example because you know Pinot noir is a very delicate wine a very fickle fickle in the vineyard and also very fickle in the cellar So so we tasted it We know that wine very well And then we tasted one that was aged in the sea and the one age in the sea was significantly more developed a little bit more tertiary note, but it gained this Amazing silky palette that you want and pinot noir. So that was the best example to have but also of course we We've also tasted a couple of examples like certain white wines and roses losing its finesse losing the Vibrant the vibrancy of the wine, but that's it all of these things Marco is you go undergoing kind of like an experimental phase So those wines that we tasted not all of them. In fact, most of them they are not available on the market they're just kind of a you know a group of friends and Professionals coming together to discuss like what wine work and what wine doesn't work in the sea so you believe in it I believe in it But I think a lot more studies need to go into it to figure out what works and you know What is the the real impact of it? I don't think aging wine in the cellar is considered a part of wine making But if it makes the process of aging faster, why not not all of us have like 30 years wait for one to be ready You know, you know I from what I've tasted a lot of people are skeptical from what I've seen the wines become a little bit more Concentrated I actually don't know I'm a chemistry major But I still couldn't figure out actually what the chemist the chemistry is behind that I just know that some wines develop while some wines don't we're gonna taste through three today. These are experimental wines Yeah, they want to give these a go. Absolutely, please. Oh, yeah, okay We know the first one we tasted a wine. We know really well. This is an experiment It's Nikolai off in Austria one of the first bio-nabbit dynamic producers Very good producer one of the first Austrian wines to get a hundred points from the wine advocate Robert Parker This is the 2014 Stunner hoon steiner hoon re-sling I Really really really really like this wine. You can see the cool patterns that emerge when the water is Okay Aged in the Adriatic Sea It's it's only dropped down about 15 20 meters. I actually dove down recently a few weeks ago went down saw it Pretty impressive pretty darn cool. I love this wine Marco wasn't happy with how it was developing. Let's give this a go. What do you think so far? It will be nice to have the original wine side-by-side, but knowing the house style and all that right Nikolai off wine is more about tension in the mouth that this Amazing balance of acidity and gentle flavors and I do find that this one is a little bit more developed He has more pronounced like body and flavors, but it's still a really good wine It's really good, you know, I would like to take we've done experience. We taste the same wine Nudge and agency versus agency. This wine is all ridiculously good wine. I mean huge scores I think this bitch is 96 points. I'm Venice For me when I'm tasting it now, I actually feel like I want a little more fruit I think it's got plenty of you do I think I feel like I want this tension from the acidity tingling sensation that I usually get from Nikolai off Well, it's very good. It's a good wine. It's very good. I just don't know how it would you know the sea versus the sea One thing it does it does it is quite saying on the finish. It is a little bit. Yeah So this one's hard to compare. First of all, it's really really delicious wine in the first place I mean, I would have it somewhere in like the 93 point range 92 point range. I think it's really excellent wine The jury's still on whether this one works. He Mark wasn't so Confident and Nikolai off swans aging and see but we'll have to see right The thing is that some people really just like the mineral and it's you know, salty flavor We've got friends who's like we have a couple of friends who really just want white wines like that And I think there are people who would actually prefer this DH style than the fresher Sandler style. Well, let's move on here. So Jury's out on stop one the next one we have the Testament bobbich an actual Croatian wine 2017 this was aged for I believe 270 days in the sea. We just tasted this wine non-aged In a big tasting last week. So it'd be interesting to see how this is each other see I have to give you a little preface I actually did not like I really usually do not enjoy this wine I want to see what you think after we age it in the sea Babbage is a native grape to Croatia. Some believe it's the red grape with the highest potential But there's just not a lot of it made in terms of variety form although it's growing every single year It's a lot a lot a lot better Really, are you joking? smell it smell it first Okay Freshly tilted soy and then with like Cranberry cherry no, you know this I taste it, you know this wine when I taste it regular. I've tasted it several times Not each time to the sea it actually It tastes burnt Up front on the nose like just burnt fruit and then there's just kind of nothing on the palate the palates really thin This smells really good Dark cherry kind of rose petal mineral crushed rock type deal Really, this is great And it's got it has a lot of intensity on the body on the palate Wow No, I actually was expecting to crush this on the show actually So round it's concentrated made it round the tan The tans can be harsh on this kind of this wine, but it's really quite Round refined. It's something that a lot of people are gonna like But you know what it's not it's not just silky and rounded and soft it has some tannins Wow What I like also right is the nose is really interesting and complex and the Dalmatian Mediterranean characteristics to shows the the finish still tastes a little bit raisin only on the finish So you have a lot of freshness Routines everything up front and then it finishes like typical Mediterranean wine I'm gonna be seriously because I've scoped this wine. I don't even rent a box. I haven't Non-agency seriously. I have it like in the low 80s This I would even consider it being almost kind of like 89 90 point type range Wow Wow This really has like sort of like a sense of place characteristic of bar bitch. Yeah I'm really I seriously was ready to find a salty. I don't find it salty But I find it more concentrated and I was ready to kill this wine. So Let's move on. I'm really shocked here. Wow Wow Wow, okay, let's go on. We have another one that we actually this is cool. Look at look at look at how the muscles has developed This is the Yosich Kuve superior aid This is an experimental wine also age in the sea for one whole year to blend the Kevroni 7 yon Kevroni funk and see it Barrel aged from Baranya in Slovenia right on the border of Hungary and Croatia We did taste this wine already age in the sea not age the sea We've even done a video on this wine that age in the sea We liked it so much that Shireen asked Marco if we could please have a bottle of it. What do you think? Exactly, that's how I remember it and the nose is still The nose is still pretty much in its original state It's quite a bit of an oaky wine when I first tasted it a year ago I thought it was kind of like more Austrian and style and I think the fruit is a little bit dull back now But what I love is the palate, you know for this kind of blend. It's silky It's the kind of silkiness I would say you expect from like some of the 70s Napa Valley Cabernet or even some of the very good Pinot Noir. This is like real silkiness. I mean, it's It this wine is usually a little woody, but though it's really really nice the wood for me is dialed up It's got so much Cabernet fronk a lot of caps come black olive cherry There's a little bit pepper It's so funny this is right next this this region is right next to the line Hungary Which is famous for Cabernet fronk and you said that it reminds you of that style right ripe or denser Cabernet fronk Yeah, definitely What's more interesting is this wine is a little bit salty on the finish so This is exactly what I like again. It shows where it's from it shows the variety in this side It shows as H in the cellar. I mean underwater because of that salty It's an improvement when it was on now to see if I was good one in ninety ninety one point ninety one I think I gave it. I think I've been ninety two ninety three range with it I would be inclined to put it as ninety three because it's so dead unique so I mean we had one maybe one maybe one inconclusive and two yeses That's Really darn cool. I like wow Every time we do every time we taste it it's fascinating and then on on on the flip side It's beautiful to go there. It's beautiful to see the wines being put in there see bringing them up We actually made a video. It was part of a video when we did a video series on Croatian wine I'll put that link in the description box. That's when you'll see actually sure it's first X Reactions, which you actually really tasted the same wine aged in the sea versus nice in the sea I think I have the same reaction today as well, especially with the barbage Anything else that you want to add on this the story you think it's a good idea for the story of Croatia. I I know there are people who are quite against the idea of aging wine underwater because it's like it's like very strong and unnatural Intervention they claim or but I think I think for Croatia, especially or even Italy as well It's a great story. I mean it's like come on Croatia surrounded by the Adriatic say Sometimes Teowar the word Teowar is a little bit too too much of a blanket I feel and if you want to talk about this whole identity and Teowar thing right Adriatic sea could easily be part of the Teowar or Croatian wine as well And Marco's experiment with Italian wines. We did try some Barbarisco some Amarone some port from the sea And it was pretty darn good That's about it. It's just important to support innovation in the wine industry. I mean we need to move forward We need to learn we need to continue to grow and to try new ways of making wine. It's come on It's getting warm, you know, the climate change. Maybe it's better to just put everything under water So guys check it out. I'll check out Coral wines. I'll put some of the information in the box These what I think this one will be on the market. These will not be but he has a big selection Check it out and guys if you like this video Please subscribe to exotic wine travel. We will see you Wow