After having funds approved from the ‘wine envelope,’ the Kutjevo company is set to restore the old cellar dating from 1232. It is one of the oldest cellars in Europe in which, as they like to say in Kutjevo, “wine has been consumed without interruption for 785 years.” The cellar was set up by Cistercians, members of a clerical order from the French Burgundy, who created the entire Kutjevo complex, Poslovni Dnevnik reported on April 10, 2017.
This multi-million restoration will, as stated by Josip Vitez, director of wine growing production in Kutjevo, bring a completely new look to the cellar. As he cited, it includes renovation from the ground up, preparing a new tasting room, new barrels and museum. “Our largest barrel in the cellar can hold 53.520 litres, is made from Slavonian oak and has ‘bread’ superior Graševina for 35 years. We say that barrel is the mother of our superior Kutjevo Graševina,” Vitez boasted.
Last year they planted 20 new hectares, with another 40 planned this year in three positions which are key to wine quality, considering superior wines are grown there. One of them is the Graševina Turković, created to honour the family which owned the Kutjevo winery for years, as well as the ice harvest Graševina from the highest wine growing positions, picked this year at a temperature of -7 Celsius. “Croatia has 130 indigenous wine varieties and Graševina is a brand of this area. It began to win medals back in the times of the Turković family. Wine tasting is a subjective experience, a glass of wine has 3-500 various aromas,” said Valentina Silović from Kutjevo company.
Considering women make up 53 percent of consumers today, the latest blind tasting organised in Kutjevo was designed to get feedback from women. As Silović noted, since wine has too much information, it cannot be experienced fully. So they began with a tasting and after that first experience began learning of wine.
