This coming Saturday the premier edition of the Sparkling Wine Salon will take place in Zagreb’s Dubrovnik Hotel on February 11. Although this is its first event in Croatia, the festival actually has an interesting history. The presentation of sparkling wines is the first departure across borders of the famed Salon Penečnih Vin from Ljubljana. Its founder Rade Stojanovič is celebrating 20 years of its existence.
“We came from the IT sector and had experience from computer fairs,” said Stojanovič. “We travelled and learned from wine fairs and combined the experience into our own. Focusing on domestic small producers was our way in, some of them later went on to become great stars.” The festival kept expanding until the world financial crisis set in, when domestic interest began to fall. “We realized then the general format of a wine fair is history and that we need to specialize. Hence the Sparkling Wine Salon, then the Laško and Rhine Riesling Salon etc. Working together with the visitors, media and wine experts has kept us going for 20 years and here we are in Zagreb although going beyond Slovenia was not our ambition at first,” said Stojanovič. Croatian producers are regular exhibitors in Ljubljana. The initiator and organiser of the Zagreb Salon is prof. Marija Vukelić, together with dr. Nina Levičnik, sommelier and winery architecture expert.
“Since Croatia produces some excellent sparklings and the Zagreb audience is much more passionate to sparklings, I am convinced the first Salon in Zagreb will be the beginning of a successful story,” concluded Stojanovič.
On Saturday from 14 to 19h visitors will be able to taste sparkling wines from nearly all Croatian producers such as Tomac, Šember and Peršurić to Dalmatian wineries as well as 14 Slovenian wineries. There will also be a B”B segment and two workshops. You can read more on their Facebook page.
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