“We want to encourage and develop excellence, and therefore we have invested a lot of effort in the selection of best wines, the quality of our workshops and the overall experience,” said the creator of the project and the chief organizer Saša Špiranec at the presentation of Vinart Grand Tasting, a wine festival which will be held for the fourth time on March 1 and 2 at Lauba in Zagreb.
This time, 120 winemakers have been selected for the two-day wine festival, while in late February the DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton will host as many as 20 specialised workshops and the first edition of Vinart Petite Tasting, which is one of the new projects from Vinart’s team. All in all, it will be full two weeks entirely dedicated to wines.
Grand Tasting is an event which has been marked on calendars of wine fans and wine professionals for the fourth year in a row, and functions as an invitation festival where organisers host the best and most interesting Croatian winemakers and their colleagues from other countries. In the same vein, the day before the official start of the festival, on February 28, the DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton will host the first topical festival called Vinart Petite Tasting, which will present wines from the countries in the region, i.e. wines from newer members of the European Union, named the New Europe Terroirs. Visitors will be shown with 130 wine labels from 12 countries: Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova and Turkey – which all strongly express the unique microclimatic and pedological conditions in which they are created.
“Most of the wines and winemakers that will come are unknown to the Croatian wine circles, so we believe that we are bringing something unique, new and different,” said Špiranec, adding that in preparing the wine list for Petite Tasting they have selected mainly local autochthonous varieties, although there are some international ones as well. “The key elements were the excellent results in the given area and unique expression,” explained Špiranec.
Some of the labels presented will be Veliko Belo (Movia), Rebula (Jakončič), Renski Rizling (Protner), Mjesečar (Brkić), Blatina Carsus (Škegro), Graffiti (Bjelica), Kremen Kamen (Matalj), Ryzlink Vlašski (Gala), Takvkveri (Gotsa), Feteasca Neagra (Bala Geza), Franz Ferdinand (Markus), Ocu (Boškinac), Santa Elizabeta (Benvenuti) and many, many others.
This year, the festival will also host a prestigious international name from the wine circles – Anthony Rose, who writes about wines for Decanter and Independent, and who is the vice president of the Decanter World Wine Awards Australia panel. This will be an excellent opportunity for Croatia to present him with the selection of its best wines.
Wine professionals and wine fans will be able to attend exciting wine workshops even before the festival starts, as early as from February 22, and tickets for them are already available for sale at the Vinart Grand Tasting website. At the festival itself, the visitors will have available a pop-up wine shop with the presented wines, and for every festival ticket, you buy there will be discounts for the pop-up wine shop or for using taxi services.
More news about Croatian wines can be found in the Lifestyle section.
