 Located in Southern Dalmatia, Camarna is Croatia's newest appellation. This scenic seaside region is dedicated to local varieties and organic farming. Join us and meet the pioneers of Camarna. It's all in the latest episode of cracking Croatian wine. It's a five-hour drive from Zagreb to Gratac Croatia. This beach town in Southern Dalmatia was serves our base. Getting close to our house. Wow. It looks like we'll be comfortable at the seaside of Villa Lavanda. Complete with a patio. Today I'll be doing a tour of our summer house. We'll be here for a couple of weeks. We have a really nice garden with a few decks. Look at that. I love waking up in the morning. Just sitting out here having a coffee. It rarely rains in Dalmatia during the summer but tonight we're taking in this rare storm from the front porch. Optima Renekar set us up with a nice ride to enjoy the drive from Gratac to Camarna which is scenic. Rizman. So Rizman you have kind of taken off-shoot a little side road off the main road. I think when we came here last time it was rocky. It looks like they paved the road. Good job. Rizman is the pioneering winery of Camarna. Established in 2006 their winery offers sweeping views of the Adriatic Sea and the entire Appalachian. Proprietor Damir Stimatz greets us and takes us through a wine-pairing meal in his tasting room. Mussels. We've long been fans of Rizman's post-ship and the latest vintage doesn't disappoint. To me it's one of the best post-ship. It's just really defined flavors. A lot of freshness. But yeah you've got a body that is smooth but not heavy. And as I feel I want to say that's a very nice salivity on the finish. Very happy with the post-ship. Next up is Rizman's barrel fermented post-ship named Nona. We pair it with the octopus salad. Or Nona. Because I like it. We take a quick pause to visit the cellar. St. Michael label is that I have two conditions. It should be from one plot of vineyard and one variety. This break is welcome because next up are the reds from Rizman paired with some dry aged beef. Dry aged. Yeah it's ribeye and the rum stick. Pink in the middle just like shirin likes it. It's paired with another excellent vintage of Rizman Prima's Plovets Male. Typically you get this garlic like oxidative style of flavor as well on Plovets Male. Where's this smooth towards more time? You know it's savory but fresh. We have a good impression of the fruit as well. It's not dry fruit but fresh fruit. Damir tells us about Kamarna and what he sees for Rizman. I think it's special that all new wine producers have organic production and this is the youngest wine region in Croatia. I can say that all Rizman wines have one elegant note. We want the identity of variety and also of terroir but a very new school of all wine making. Good wines, stellar views and food pairing make this winery a can't miss. The distinctive Noretva Valley is right next to Kamarna. This oasis of water and green vegetation sticks out like a sore thumb in bone dry Dalmatia. It's here that the Noretva River flows down from the mountains in Bosnia to the Adriatic Sea. The delta known as Utsce Noretva is a world-class windsurfing destination. We don't have time to indulge, maybe next time. The next day we head to another main stand the Kamarna wine route, Terra Madre. This winery was established by three families who are business partners in agricultural equipment. The Adriana from one of the families meets us and shows us the cellar. Terra Madre has employed well-respected winemaker Marco Schumann. Dragana, another member of the Terra Madre family comes to greet us. She explains the history of all three families. The terrace offers sweeping views of the Adriatic Sea and we start the tasting. This vintage of the post-ship premium is crisp, delicious and an affordable introduction to the variety. However, we're really impressed with the new Plovetsmali premium, which is the selection of the best grapes and... More structure. And often when it comes to Kamarna Plovetsmali, I would expect a little bit more florality, which shows in this wine. It's got a little bit of a satyr rose note and it's not bruised. Premium coming into one, two and three years old in Baric, of course. Better technology and better grape. It's coming in the end, better wine. It has a bit of Niveolo quality to it. It has the rosy, it has the sour cherry, it has the raspberry and structurally for the tannins, it fills the mouth but it's not too astringent. It's firm and yum but it's not too astringent at the same time. Perfect, thank you. Sherene usually does all of the cooking so I'm gonna do a little, give a little break today. I'm gonna cook up a few classic Dalmatian dishes. First up, we're gonna cook some peca. First up is cleaning the fish. It's time to clean and scale the fish. So it's all about fresh seafood but we're gonna put paprika, lemon, rosemary from the garden, potatoes, onions. The last local touch is a little lime from the garden as well as rosemary from the garden. So it's a little casserole roast dish, we're sticking the oven. We need a big meal because our friend is coming over. Master of wine, Jo Ahern produces small quantities of wine on the nearby island of Hoare, using native grapes. We find her latest vintage of post-ship to be stunning. So when I think about this, particularly this one where I talk about umami-ness, it's actually like what you said it's in the middle, it's kind of like missile soap quality, like pop in the middle. Where here the vineyard is actually is bigger and it's on slightly different level but also slightly different ages. So I get the, I pick earlier for higher acidity and maybe only 12% alcohol and citrusy like limes and melons from the younger part of the vineyard and then the older part in the middle which has got the richest soil, it's much more of the peaches and the melons type thing. I really enjoyed the last time when we visited it but right now it really just came together in a way that it's such a complex wine, it's such an intentional wine. I'm actually super excited about it. So we're at the Daiak, I'm sorry, Daiak winery in Vina Daiak. It's one of the producers that I really know very little about. I had their post-ship a couple months ago and it was pretty decent so let's see. Vina Daiak is a new producer and their tasting room is a roadside stop overlooking Kamarna. It's 35 degrees Celsius. I feel like a poster truck. The stop offers splendid views of the Appalachian and the Adriatic Sea. We're met by one of the family members, Dino Daiak. The Daiak family runs several accommodation options including a luxury villa in addition to more budget friendly apartments. The property comes complete with fresh figs. Good. I like it when it's due a little bit green. Some of the properties are near the Daiak vineyards which are located right on the Adriatic. Real sea side vineyards. Very good shape and very good condition and we hope it will be the good year. Back up at the roadside stop we sit down and taste with the family including Dino's father Damir and his sister Masha who is studying winemaking. The 2018 post-ship grabs our attention once again. What I really like about it is now that a lot of people are selling 2019, they are still selling 2008 which gains a lot of richness on the palate. I wouldn't say it's unctuous but you have a hazier, creamier feel to it and it noses much more towards a tropical type. I think it tastes like a southern ron white. I don't think it's as mineral as southern ron but there's a richness that is quite southern ron. The Daiak olive oil is also delicious and made in tiny quantities. It can only 100 liters per year. It's spicy and bitter at the same time but so spicy that it covers up the bitterness so in a way it's balanced. Nearby is the Sveti Roko vineyard of St. Hills. This estate is aided by superstar French winemaking consultant Michel Roulin. The winery is on nearby Pellierschatz Peninsula but today winemaker Antonia Karr agrees to meet us in Kamarna. When we first met Antonia a few years ago she was just working in a tasting room. Now she's in charge of the production. She explains the difference between their two main sites for Plovetsmali, Dingach and Pellierschatz and Sveti Roko and Kamarna. What is the difference between the harvest of Plovetsil and the harvest of Dingach? Dingach earlier than Kamarna so maybe 10 days in the year. So Dingach is a more hotter climate with a different soil with the quartz and less brown soil and then Kamarna is limestone with more cooler nights, more windy nights and you can preserve better acidity in the grapes. Kamarna is very young region still and the wineries are very young so maybe with the years we can also control better the tenants. In terms of the flavor profile and taste what are the distinct differences in the Dingach and Plovetsmali from Kamarna? Yeah it's definitely first the acidity that is you can find more in in Kamarna and then this we call it like a garrick these Mediterranean spices on the nose less maybe more red fruits less plums like in Dingach you find plums and jammy notes. Back at the Villa Lavanda we run both their Plovetsmali through the taste test. I have Stati Roko on left Dingach on the right Stati Roko is more fruit driven and also lightly floral whereas Dingach is typical Dingach so you really get a very strong anchovy smell in fact it's kind of like a savory really distinct smell but anyhow back to Dingach right it also has more of this very dry Mediterranean brash garrick smell to it. Yeah correct Roko is softer whereas Dingach has a more firm structure. Is Barolo the Barbarisco a fair comparison? Sort of. Both wines are excellent but this year's Dingach knacks our socks off. The Dingach is so good this is young tenants but it's not really a string gem and it sits so nicely on the mid palette. There's some time in the day so we soak up the sun before indulging in the beautiful gradate sunset. The next day we meet up with friend and wine lover Martina Melechevich to visit Valerovich winery. The winery is headed up by Josep Valerovich. It's a new estate and his family got started by running a greenhouse in nursery. When I was a kid we have greenhouses and I used to hate working in the greenhouses because they were so hot. Josep is working on his PhD about Plovetsmalli and he explains why it's such a difficult grape. Four types of berries one one bunch of grape you have green berries what they give you lactic acid and you have like red berries but it's not they have usually more acidity than sugar you have perfect berry and you have reasons. Like all the sites in Kamarna the Valerovich vineyards are impressive. Even though it's late August Plovetsmalli still hasn't completely turned color. There's grapes over here on rye but then you can see some of these they're still the um red and then some green berries over here as well. Back in the winery we get to revisit one of our favorite Valerovich wines the Lechik Rose. So it's very hard to make one hundred percent the rose made of Plovetsmalli. The newest releases offer some surprises like the fresh poshup and the Plovetsmalli gold edition. It's all over the mouth fine yeah but it's not good. Yes now it's time to eat. Two local specialties frog and eel brode and frog legs cooked with onion. It's very close to what we have in Sonobal where we cook it with spring onion. You like it? Imaginary glove of forada, chicken and pork. Somebody happy over there? When you don't talk too much it's good. After dinner Yosef shows us some of his experiments. Plovetsmalli harvested at different dates with different maceration times. We love to see this curiosity and it's much needed in Dalmatia as Yosef explains. We have everything good but we need to work a lot for that we can compete. If you're going abroad to the other country you very great people know about Croatia, Croatian wine but we have more than 130 autotonic variety in digits so there is our mission to get this all varieties to the world. Well it's that time of year it's late August in Dalmatia Croatia so we're going to get ready to harvest some grapes. It's hot in Dalmatia when push-up ripens so harvesting at night helps to preserve acidity and aroma. Oh I love this acidity. It's been a long night the grapes are all in the basket and we'll send them to the winery. It will cool for a bit a few hours and then we'll start processing the grapes tomorrow morning. We really love 2019 and 2020 it looks good so I'm looking forward to seeing how it will turn out. Even though Camaro is a young region it looks like it's in good hands. We've seen some old friends and met some new ones on this trip. We're always a little sad to leave Dalmatia but we'll be back soon. Thanks for watching. Hey you made it to the end. Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel click the bell so you know when new videos are out. If you like content like this check out our Patreon page where you get some behind the scenes exclusive content. Thanks for watching. Cheers. Cheers.