Old World
Croatia wine
An Adriatic country with a long viticultural history, and the place DNA analysis traced Zinfandel back to.
Overview
Croatia divides into a Mediterranean coast, where the reds are, and a continental north, where the whites are.
Its contribution to the wider wine world is genetic. Zinfandel’s origin was unresolved for two centuries until DNA work in the 1990s and 2000s linked it to Primitivo in Puglia and then to the old Dalmatian variety Tribidrag, also called Crljenak Kaštelanski.
Plavac Mali, the leading Dalmatian red, turned out to be Tribidrag’s offspring rather than the same variety — which is why an earlier and widely repeated identification of Plavac Mali as Zinfandel was wrong.
Malvazija Istarska in Istria and Graševina (Welschriesling) in the north-east are the significant whites.
Mediterranean on the coast and islands, continental inland. The coastal vineyards are hot, dry and steep; the northern ones are cool and better suited to white wine.
Regions
mediterranean · hot
Dalmatia
The Croatian coast and its islands, and the place DNA analysis traced Zinfandel back to.
mediterranean · moderate
Istria
A peninsula shared with Slovenia and Italy, and the home of Malvazija Istarska — one of the Adriatic’s best white varieties.
continental
Slavonia
Croatia’s continental east, the country’s white-wine heartland — and the source of the oak the rest of Europe ages its reds in.
Wines
Grapes grown here
Sources
Sources consulted
- International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) — OIV
- Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) — Julius Kühn-Institut, Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof