 Hello, hello, hello, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horkey. I am shooting time. Welcome back to the show. We're all about having you drink adventurously so you can expand your palate and expand your mind. Let's get into it. We've had a crazy few days. The work amongst everything that's happening around the world with coronavirus and everything. Yesterday, there was an earthquake in Zagreb, right, those pretty darn scary? We're alive. We woke up to 6.30 in the morning and we're on the seventh floor and the apartment was shaking. I'm not gonna lie, it was probably one of the most scary times for me, actually. Well, is there a little bit of a tremor? I don't know if there's a tremor yet, luckily. There's been tremors going on too as well, so that's kind of weird because Croatia's not a fault line. But anyways, we're gonna talk, we're gonna drink some Croatian wines. We're gonna taste some Croatian wines today. As you know, we spend a couple, three, four months a year in Croatia, so we wrote the book on Croatian wine. We're tasting quite frequently and keeping up to date. So we get a producer here from Barania, from Slovenia, down to Klasice. And we've been there before, right? Yep, we have about 2018, so we're there. We don't write, or we don't frequent that area very much because the download area tends to have bigger producers and they're not that many producers to visit as well. But it's always nice to catch up with the new vintages and I think they offer quite a different style of wines from the rest of Croatia. Yeah, Barania is right, this, you know, Barania Hill, Bansko Berdo, it's right on the border of Croatia, but around the border of Serbia and Hungary, warm area. This producer is eco-certified, organically certified. They make, we're not tasting today, they have three ranges of wines. They have entry-level silver line. We're gonna taste in some premium wines. The entry-level Grašavina, I'll put it up on the screen. For my palate, I think it's very good, especially for wine, you can find in the supermarket sometimes less than five year olds. Yeah, the Grašavina is also included in our book as one of the recommendations. Yeah, so let's get started. We're gonna taste their silver line Grašavina. 2018, these wines, the silver line and the premium wine, these are the kind of wines you're gonna find in the shop, the more specialty shops, entry-level you're gonna find more in the grocery store. For those of you who don't know, that maybe just brand new to the show, Grašavina is the most widely planted grape in Croatia, goes by a number of names, Velserys, St. Lasky Riesling, Italian Riesling, blah, blah, blah, blah, and so forth. So let's get into it. Yeah, and also Grašavina is the flagship wine in the Danube and the Slavonia area. But I think the most interesting part is, even though Slavonia and the Danube are considered one wine region, right? But Grašavina from Slavonia is distinctly different from the ones in the Danube. I agree too. The Danube is much bigger, more fruity, whereas Slavonia is more towards the mineral, more botanical kind of notes. More grassy. I would think that these are a little bit more meatier too. So let's give this a go. It's definitely fruity. I haven't tasted this, I haven't tasted the silver line. I think the last vintage we had maybe was 16 of this. So let's give it a go. Grašavinas you're gonna get a little bit more color, so kind of a golden color, this is a fresh wine. Apple, banana. A lot of apple. Linsu, it's a little bit of a tropical fruit, which is not common if you're getting it from Slavonia. Baked apple. Yeah, a lot of yellow peach. It's not grassy and mineral, like the ones that you're gonna get from Kutevo and the center of Slavonia. As you would expect from all Grašavina, it's supposed to be a refreshing wine. This is not meant to be a world beater. It's meant to be kind of like a everyday wine, something that's not very expensive. What do you think about the style of Grašavina? I think of a Chua Dao, right? A lot of people would like it because this is really fruity and much bigger in body. It's a very assessable wine. We've got a pairing, should we think? This would go with Croatia? I think this can easily actually go well with fishpaprikash because it's refreshing, it's big enough, there's enough sweetness. So if you like kind of a bigger, riper style fresh white wine, this is something you might wanna check out. For me, like I said, this type of wine is not meant to be a world beater. To me, it's kind of like in the 87 point type range, but I think it's delicious, serviceful. It's something that's just really enjoyable on a hot summer day. So let's move on to the premium wines. This is a wine we have not tasted before. This is the Kalazic Batina Blanc 2010, not an archive wine, a current release. This is Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris, or Pinot Grigio, however you like to refer to it as. Batina is the name of the village where the vineyards are. Very interesting region because it's a flat region besides the hill the vineyards on, it's all golden wheat, corn, and then this one hill, it's only 200 meters high, you have vines as well. So let's give this a go now. And that's a very fertile area as well of Croatia. Golden color as you're gonna get. You know what's cool? This wine retails on the shop. I'm not talking about in the winery. Like in the specialty shop, you're gonna see this wine for about 10 euros, 50 cents for a 2010 for an aged wine. So that's kind of cool. Golden color, let's give this a little bit of a smell. Developed wine, much of a develop on. This is a kind of blend you're gonna see in free. League, what kind of stuff do you pick up on this? I think this is definitely more towards a tertiary side. More honey, I think it's lip pick pretty late and pretty ripe as well. Again, it's a very specific style. You would like that sort of wine with this honey-ness, late picking fruit and all that, something you would like. Definitely more dry fruit as well, more of dry peach than fresh peach. Traditionally, the whites from this region are late harvest, higher on alcohol. Is it too aged for you or do you find it to be okay? I haven't tasted it, it smells okay. It's perfectly fine. I like the dried apricot notes. I like aged whites, so let's give this a go. A little bit spicy, you get this ginger-y taste to it. Oh, the empala is slightly bitter, but I appreciate bitterness in general for a lot of wine as long as it's balanced and this bitterness offers a sense of freshness. It's got acidity too, for me. Not a ton for me. But sir, are you surprised by this wine? I like it. I actually surprised a lot, actually, I'm not gonna lie, I actually really, really like it. Let me give it one more shot here. I think it's a specific, very charismatic sort of one that's after a certain type of palette, and I appreciate it. For me, what's really surprising about this wine, I thought maybe it would be 2010, why you think it'd be too tired? I don't think it's not, I still get lots of apricots, sliced peaches type deal. Acidity's good. I'm not exaggerating, I might go, of course this is current release too, 2010. I might go 89, 90 even, I'm gonna say 90 because the uniqueness, you can get this in aged wine on the shelf. Good job by them, I think really interesting. Anything else that you wanna add on this little blend? No, I think if you know what you're getting yourself into, this is a really good value for money wine. Yeah, especially people that like aged whites. I'm actually quite impressed. I would definitely buy this wine. I would actually really highly recommend it. I would buy it too. Yeah, I'd highly recommend it. Let's move on here. So this is another, this is one of their premium wines. This is a Cabernet Sauvignon 2012. 2012 was great for all the region here, Hungary, Serbia, Istria, so let's see how this is going. This is also the current release. Now imagine this, an aged Cabernet Sauvignon 2012, you get it in the shop for about, the Coon is not very strong right now, about 14 euros. So that's pretty darn cool. Let's give this a go here. So Cabernet Sauvignon is quite widely planted in Barada. I mean that area, even though it's continental, it has a lot of sun, I think about 2,000 hours of sun, so there's no issue with planting Cabernet over there. I have to say, because we had test bottles of all this, we tasted these two for the first time. We already had a test bottle of this, and the first one was dusty. This is not very dusty. For me, you're going to get a lot of black cherry. Just a touch of violet. Do you get any of the greens? A little on the end palette, which I enjoy. I do look for a little bit of greeners on Cabernet. You think this bottle is better than the first one we have? It's a lot better, yeah. What kind of flavors, what kind of stuff are you picking up on this Cabernet? I like it as two as a fresher side, not too green, but as two as a fresher side. It's not overly extracted as well. The tenons, they're very in place, they're not too dry. Still a little bit firm for 2012, but it's very nice to drink now. Not overly complex, not a really long and pallet wine, but it's very nice to drink Cabernet. Yes, if you're going to get medium body, kind of more medium body Cabernet-7 yawn, you have a little bit of the roundness from the aging, especially the fact that you can get this aged. For me, we're looking at 88, 89 point type wine. I think it's really nice that you can get aged Cabernet-7 yawn. There's not a lot of great Cabernet-7 yawn variety wines in Croatia. In fact, you can get an aged one, super enjoyable. I would love to have this with some cool one, right? I think it's also in comparison to typical Cabernet-7 yawns that you get from Croatia. It tends to be a little bit more ripe, more tenon. This is something that's much easier to drink and fresher in style. I actually respect this bottle a lot. It's just something that I really, really enjoy. So, Colossus, I'm really lately, since we're spending a lot of, we're kind of gonna be in Croatia for a while. I'm really a fan of the continental wines. Wines from Istria, Dalmatia, of course I love, but they get all the hype, they get the most visibility, but you can get some great values in continental Croatia. I think you get organically certified wine, you get some of their entry-level stuff for anywhere in the five-year range. To the premium stuff is just 10 to 15 euros. Really good value for money. And also this area used to be known for white wine region, so lately they've been really pushing for their red wines, and their red wines do deliver a fresher style in general. And they're getting better and better, right? So, I actually really want to try the, they make a Batina red. I think it's Suram or a little Cabernet-7 yawn. We haven't tried it yet. So, guys, check it out. If you want to know more about Croatian wine, check out our book, Cracking Croatian Wine, Visitor-Friendly Guy. It's on Amazon now. And if you like this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel below. Yep, Exotic Wine Travel. When you visit Croatia, look out for Continental wines, and I guess we will see you at the next episode. Yeah!