 Basketball fans? Sports fans? NBA fans? Okay, just a cup by. Well anyways, I'm a huge NBA fan so in the 90s there was a huge influx of players from Yugoslavia, Vladivostok, Dresden Petrovic, Petrovic, and I was just so fascinated with all these long names and how they played and it just made me want to go to this place and I remember in third grade or maybe fourth grade I can't remember and we had the old chalkboards if you remember that and the teacher would pull down those maps and one day I remember the map was pulled down and where Yugoslavia was there's like five or six different countries and that was just it just kind of blew my mind. So today might be a little bit different from the typical masterclass we'll be going through because we'll be doing kind of like an armchair travel style kind of presentation where we'll show you and share with you you know the people that we met the food that we ate the setting where we stay we try to put all that into the next 45 minutes. This is Croatia this is a map just know that blue part right there where it says Dalmatia right to the left or the west is the Adriatic Sea so directly from that is Italy and then we have up to the north there's Slovenia, Austria so it's kind of the crossroads between Central and Eastern Europe and just some real basic things you need to know there's four wine regions see up there in Green, Istria and Kavarnar and Dalmatia those are Mediterranean climates there's a mountain chain that separates it and the Croatia uplands and Slovenia and the Danube right there those are continental it's a continental climate there it's just something that because we'll refer back to this map four main wide regions 12 self-appalachian 66, 130 indigenous grapes about 40 are in production today and we're going to taste some of those and when we first came through Croatia we came through where it says Danube right there we came in that way tasting and then after we tasted some producers we drove all the way down tasted all through Serbia tasted all through Macedonia all through Montenegro Bosnia-Herzegovina came up through Dalmatia Istria flew out of the country came back to Zagreb and then covered all those continental areas that was over to two year period. So this grape is actually from see Slovenia the Danube and Croatia uplands that's where it's actually grown it is fitting that we do a class in Croatian wine on this grape because it's the most widely planted grape in Croatia this is the first dish we had it with and I can remember this is so this is our first experience in Croatia we sat down at a winery at the head of restaurant and we got the fish paprikas because we heard that's supposed to be really good and we went to choose the wine and the sommelier came up to us and he said my guess no no no you don't choose the wine I choose the wine okay so what I'm and we tried Grasavina with paprikas and it's a pretty work surprisingly well Serena tell you a little bit more about the grape in the producer yeah as Matt mentioned it is the most widely planted grape in Croatia but one of the key areas for growing the grape is Slovenia what you're tasting is from the Darunfa Appalachian it is known to create cooler more fruit forward Grasavina but what is also quintessential that really attracts a lot of people to Grasavina is this mineral flavor on the finish and you taste a little bit of salinity in this as well you got mine this is an everyday wine this is this is a lower-priced wine this is the wine that everybody can drink everybody's drinking either fresh with lunch a lot of times they mix it with sparkling water to make the amish or a spritzer but in general all the locals when they asked I said what are you drinking and they said when I drink and I want to drink a lot to get to drink a lot this is what we drink we drink Grasavina I'm assuming a lot of people heard of Malvazia before right everybody sort of Malvazia everybody's professional this is a different strain of Malvazia Malvazia Istarska Malvazia Istriana it's grow it's actually from the Istrian up there in Istria it's like the flagship grape there it's grown in Friuliva Niccia Giulia and also Slovenia as well this is an entry-level type wine but if you notice right there that's not the green growing hills of Istria what why do we have that picture up there the there's a big story behind this producer wine the very first time we had this wine we were in Dubrovnik it's beautiful and we sat down in a restaurant and we wanted to have something to drink something cold refreshing we were in the tourist area so the prices were of course jacked up quite a bit and we saw this wine on the menu and we ordered it and to this day I still think it was a 375 ml bottle 1-8-7 plastic bottle we always argue over why I thought it was 375 all we know it was small was in a plastic bottle and I remember we were sitting down if you kind of think of if you're in Italy the medieval squares in Italy it's the same thing people hustling and bustling and going back and forth the Sun was setting it was golden and literally when the Sun was starting to set it was golden orange and Serene and I took a sip of that we looked up at each other we said it's actually pretty damn good like I wasn't expecting one so Malvazia is my personal favorite grip of Croatia among the Croatian white wines and well first of all when you smell the wine a lot of people would notice the floral aroma and a lot of people also distinctly pointed out as like a cassia kind of flavor so later when you go out you actually taste certain Malvazia that is itch in the cassia wood and really lifts the aroma up in the mouth it's typically it has this white flesh fruit flavor it can be pear it can be white peach it can be apple and on the finish there's usually this very slight bitterness to the finish which some people also think that you know it's kind of like almond almond paste bitterness on the finish but that's quintessential Malvazia and at the same time all this pack into the wine it's so refreshing it's such a summer way beautiful wine we particularly picked this wine not just because of the background but also I think this is a great example of price quality ratio just perfect value okay here's a funny picture so we're moving on to this is a very great this is a great that you're not it's actually not widely planted but there's a story behind it one of the impetus for us wanting to go to Croatia was an episode of Anthony Borg day no reservations everybody's in food everybody likes that show right because we're all in the food and wine did anybody here see the coastal Croatia episode who yes who saw and fantastic right so at the end of the episode you remember he's in a winery he's sitting in a winery either drinking in the barrel room and he's laughing having a good time and at the end of the episode he gets up and he drinks so much that he like he falls down in the next two people down that's all this the show ends and so we said we have to go we have to go there so this is me this is a bibbitch winery sure we'll talk about the grape a little bit more debit's easy to remember because it's like debiting up that credit card you're you're in this winery and beautiful Mediterranean breezes going through and Alan bibbitch is the winemaker his wife Vesna is a trained chef and we sat down for what was supposed to be a five-course five wine dinner and that would it enter 12 I ended up being 12 courses 12 wine went through the yeah sounds we were there for four hours so this is me after yes I am excited about this wine but mostly because I didn't pass out I can't believe so that's why I took the picture yeah so let's have a taste of debit it it's quite interesting when you go to Croatia you might not see debit wine very frequently and in fact there are more than 400 hectares of debit planted in Dalmatia where they all a great scale because most of the time debit struggle with acidity a lot of producers also find that you know the nose is a little bit too muted so they often use it as a great for blending with the rest of the wine Alan bibbitch is one of the few wine producers who really champion debit wine and the wine that you're tasting now comes from usually he does three or four harvests per vintage to get that acidity to get the fullness to get the limey citrus flavor all packed into the wine and on top of that this is really special this is on his his refreshing entry-level white wine but he also does a single vignette he does a sparkling sweet wine and a long maturation amber it's out there so go taste it why would you go through like three harvest from this basic entry-level white wine I asked him I said why do you what do you drink at daily basis and he looked at me he's like debit debit in the morning debit lunchtime debit evening before I go to bed and I have no doubt that he drinks there's a reason Anthony Gordy passed out in that episode so you should check it out Gurgits that is Mike Gurgits from Gurgits Hills winery got the craft of the Chateau Montalena from 7073 anyways this is his property in Croatia and it is if you see on the bottom work do you see Dubrovnik in small letters and then there's a word up there says Pelya shots it's a little peninsula shooting out I don't have a laser pointer right at the bottom there's Dubrovnik and there's a little peninsula that says Pelya shots right there it's about 30 kilometers from Dubrovnik yeah it's this place is spectacular it's like it's maybe a couple miles wide the peninsula is probably close to about 50 miles long it's got a mountainous spine up at the mountains go up to about 3300 feet it's a two-lane road if you remember that road just goes weaving through the mountains along the coast yeah it's it's so it's like all the villages are abandoned and this is where we stayed actually there's the winery and the bay right there's a small town called Tirstenek there's only 40 people that live there full-time that's where we stayed literally when you when you open up here when you open up and look down the balcony the crystal clue blue Adriatic sea is right there and this is the winding right there and unfortunately when we were there you can see everything burnt they went through a fight and they lost quite they lost quite a bit of their stock I think they lost an entire vintage luckily nobody was hurt and luckily we have this wine to drink from a grape called Poh Ship. So Poh Ship we tasted a grass vina we tasted mau vasia Poh Ship is the third grape that is very important in Croatia so how important is it if you go to any restaurant or anywhere that serves wine in Croatia ask for a white wine it's most likely make off mau vasia, grass vina or Poh Ship. So Poh Ship is planted all over in Dalmatia but it expresses itself best in this island called Kocula and Kocula is about 15 minutes very right from from payasah. So this grape even though this is a winery from Tarsianate the grapes are bought from Kocula or taken from Kocula and a lot of people love Poh Ship I think one of the reasons why is it's very expressive and it is very you can make it in different way old-style, macerated, fresh-style, long-leaves contact. In a way right the flavors express themselves differently depending on where they come from but there is something quite Chardonnay asked about it because of the structure, the acidity, the little bit of the tannic structure which makes it a really good grape. In fact Jens's Robinson also identified this grape as a high potential white wine grape from Croatia. And I always remember because in Croatia we would always buy with our tasting groups the locals were so fantastic we were tasting our national grapes with Croatian grapes and we bought a bottle of very simple Kocula and I see white burgundy like really inexpensive white burgundy and we had a we'd taste it next to a Poh Ship a basic Poh Ship less than lesser quality than this and I looked up and I said you know if this was wine I might have a hard time telling the difference. So this is the first wine that Shireen actually really fell in love with in terms of white wine. You want to talk about it? Yeah so earlier on we tasted the Malvazia it's grown on Terra Rosa the typical red soy or the known red soy of Austria so now we are tasting the Malvazia blend from from the white soy part of Austria and I fell in love with this this specific wine because it has this beautiful oak integration right now you are tasting it it's a fresh bottle like a nice spice on the nose full body against citrus nodes really fresh acidity. We also wanted to show this this wine because Ivica was the president of Vinistra which is the association for the growers and winemakers in Austria and he was a president for 20 years. Anybody here have a plava smiling? This is a divisive grape because this is a divisive grape Shireen. We did an old vintage tasting in the 1990s and I said okay I'm done because the tannins can get a little bit hard sometimes but anyways this producer Miloche is one of the first cult producers in Croatia. Old tradition would go to the winery there is zero stainless steel all opened up fermentation native yeast big barrel casting it really reminded me kind of Lopez they had idea which those wines and real high I could I could drink every day all day so that's the style of wine and the cool thing about it and you can see how amazed it was right there to take our fresh well-made plavats because by that point we had tasted some pretty bad plavats but this point that I was pretty excited about this wine. So we are going to taste another plava drink wine later so now we are tasting the rose. I would like to focus more about the rose in Croatia for this I know that most people would go out because Miloche is a very famous name in Croatia and I imagine most people would go out to taste this red wine and I want to make sure that his rose doesn't get lost in the crowd. So rose in a lot of countries it may be a new trend but in Croatia it's not. It used to be called Apollo and Apollo actually means half and half quite different from what it is today Apollo of the past was half red wine and half white wine so that's their old style of rose. Of course this is the new you know the typical what you know a little bit of skin contact read off free-run juice so this grape also is particularly interesting because unlike a lot of producers this is not just a byproduct this rose comes from a specific vineyard put aside to make a rose. So Miloche is really particular and he really takes pride in their rose that they put aside the plot. The grapes are picked only like a couple of days earlier. The red grapes and the rosé grapes are both picked in August. So again it's you can find that it has very very sharp acidity. For this this particular vintage has really really high acidity which will slow you know will slightly resolve and settle down over time but what is interesting also is this rose is no way a summer wine. It's something that you can go with food. It's something that even Matt and I we've spent evenings sitting down together sipping on this rose. There is a lot of nuances to it. It's not just fruity or whatever there's early told the spiciness will gradually come out. So okay move on to the reds. I know some people are anxious to get on to some of the red wines. We have a completely different style, different producer. This I'm going to tell a story about this picture first. A lot of people have Plavets Mali so they know a little about. For the people that have it, Plavets Mali is the offspring of what they they think now is the original Zinfandel which is called Surya that Kastelensky or Trimadrag. That great man with another great Doberchitz they got together and they had a little bit of fun boob out of Plavets Mali. So even though the Montenegro it's now they say Kratosia was first for Zinfandel. It's a whole discussion to open up a whole can of words. Anyways Plavets Mali. I had actually had Plavets Mali before with the Croatian and this is so random. I had it in Pali, Indonesia. This is the first time Shireen had it and this really tells you about Croatia and the life down there in Dalmatia. When we pulled into the Pelyushac Peninsula where this winery is, the same peninsula we've been talking about, we stayed at a guest house and we traveled full-time so we're very good at locating good Airbnb's and the owner said you know my family has friends from Italy would you like to join us and we sat down and it was like two three hours of food homemade wine and this is the photo that Shireen captured. And this was a special moment for for me as well because that was the first time I tasted Plavets Mali but it was also a moment that I think we both felt in love with Croatia coming into someone's house for the first time as a guest just booking Airbnb. The person invited you to dinner spending hours with you and we really felt that in Croatia like time isn't an exchange for money to them it's like a code of honor they take you in as a guest but you leave as a friend and that was really a very touching moment for us and we realized that hey there's something deeper here that we really need to discover. So Plavets Mali, let's have a taste of it. Let's talk about when when Plavets Mali is not so good which a lot of tourists tend to experience the tenants really rip your mouth from inside like you feel a punch in your mouth. The best Plavets Mali should express a sudden like perfume overtone and very subtle floral note. Most of the time it's ropes in terms of flavor the fruit is a balance of cherry and also black fruit. Another thing about Plavets Mali just like Zinfandel it tends to ripen quite unevenly that's the struggle in the vineyard so sometimes the green grapes get harvest with the drier grapes the more ripe grape so sometimes that's the trouble you get a little bit of a green tad in the inside but this is an example that I think is perfect. This is a top this is a top flight example it's named after the grandfather. The last one here so we get through so Trivedran another one of Sirene's favorite grapes this is actually from the island of Roche I don't know if you can I'm sorry to have a laser pointer there's the Peleusats Peninsula right above it is a long-skimming island called Havar and then right above there's a little fatter island called Roche and that's where this this grape and this producer is from they bought an old co-op on the branch island there's only about four producers and then they planted vineyards you want to show the book these are some of the vineyards and also uh in our book I guess it's up there as well these vineyards looking straight down these are the the vineyards of Stina's winery they're like spectacular it's stuff that you wouldn't you didn't see anyways everyone familiar is everyone heard of Trivedrags since everybody is a professional everyone's heard of Trivedrags right it's Carol Mara that found that Trivedrags, Sodia and Kasselinsky is is genetically similar to Zinfandel how did Trivedrag disappear from Croatia in the 19th century it is known and dated in books that Trivedrag is a very popular grape in Croatia but by the time in the early 2000 when it was discovered to be related to Zinfandel only 69 25 vines were left in the country what happened what we saw like some books outside and stuff like thank you everybody for being there I'm sorry the wines were poured out of order and you're my best so we did our best uh thanks for helping identify thank you guys