May the 27th, 2025 – Three golds for Croatian wine at the recent London International Win Challenge, further spotlighting incredible varieties from Croatia.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, an incredibly impressive three gold medals were taken home by Croatia at the current edition of one of the most respected and oldest wine competitions in the world, the London International Wine Challenge (IWC). This event has been held for forty years and is widely respected globally.
This is beyond fantastic news for Croatian wine production, even greater for Istrian wine production and for the beloved Malvasia (Maljvazija) variety. All three golds were won by this particular Croatian wine variety at the London International Wine Challenge. It’s by far biggest achievement for the winemakers who won the medals: the Tomaz, Damjanić and Rossi wineries.
The IWC gold medals were awarded to Ivan Damjanić’s Justina from 2022, the Rossi brothers’ Templar Monte d’Oro from 2023 and Klaudio Tomaz’s Avangarde from 2024.
In addition to the three golds, Croatian wines also won 20 silver and 34 bronze medals at the London International Wine Challenge. They also received a very encouraging 18 commendations. IWC is otherwise known and respected in the world of wine competitions, especially for the very small number of high end awards in relation to the total number of entries.
“The 2023 Malvasia was harvested on September the 15th, and the vines we picked the grapes to make it from are seven years old. The yields were a maximum of two kilograms per vine, maceration took place for 24 hours in the cold, and fermentation and ageing on the yeasts for ten months took place in wooden barrels with a capacity of one thousand and two thousand litres. The wine was additionally aged in the bottle for another six months,” revealed Marko Rossi of this Malvazija.
