An excellent, full, harmonious, dense, mighty wine with aromas of honey, tropical fruits and noble mould, but completely dry, without any sweetness. This is how Wine Stars reviewer described last autumn the Graševina Premium 2013 by Jasna Antunović from Dalj in the Danube Region. They gave it four stars, an award equal to the gold medal, meaning more than 90 points. Proving them correct was the Decanter competition in April of this year where it won 95 points, a gold medal at that competition.
“The recognition by Wine Star bolstered me to send the Graševina Premium to Decanter as well,” said economist Jasna who traded in 15 years ago a good business “with money” with insecure agriculture.
“The excellent 2013 harvest gave healthy grapes which I was able to macerate for a longer time and do a cold maceration in the stainless steel tank. Then I schooled the wine for 20 months in a Slavonian oak barrel. This gave me a complex and deep wine, elegant and creamy, but still fresh,” she said of her awarded wine.
The Malvazija La Prima 2015 was also schooled in wooden barrels in the Fakin winery from Motovun which the Decanter reviewers also gave 95 points.
“The dry white wine was aged 12 months in a barrique barrel,” described La Prima Marko Fakin on the webpages of the winery. The Benvenuti family from neighbouring Kaldir has reasons to celebrate as well. After Decanter magazine reviewers gave them 95 points in the May edition for their Teran 2012, it was announced they received the same score at the official Decanter rating, but for the 2013 harvest. The highest recognition from that rating out of over 17.000 samples came to Orahovica as well, for the Green Silvaner Jezerac 2015. In Međimurje, the Jakopić winery from Železna Gora received 95 points for the Graševina from a selective harvest of dried grapes from 2015. We should add that the wines of Jasna Antunović, Jakopić and Benvenuti wineries also won Best in Category recognitions, meaning they were declared best among Croatian white, sweet and red wines.
Jasna Antunović, Benvenuti family and Marko Fakin thus continue to showcase the pride of the Danube Region and Istria as last year 95 points went to the Ilok Cellars Traminer 2011 from a selective grape harvest and Veralda’s Istrian 2015, a Teran wine also declared the best world red mono-variety wine in the price category over 15 pounds.
And a previous world champion at the first Decanter rating in 2004 was also Ivan Enjingi from Vetovo with a mix of Graševina, Rhine Riesling, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon and Traminer Venje 1998, which is still young and is still among the best Croatian wines. We wish such a future to this year’s golden drinks as well.
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