Ernest Tolj is especially talented in branding his wines. A dozen years ago, when the media industry still had a sense and style, that man could have worked as desk editor in newspapers or high style magazines (desk editors are also in charge of titles).
Tolj’s best title is certainly Saints Heels, a brilliant play of words between Sacred Hills, with a religious connotation, and high heels with a sexual connotation, dominated by a glass surface of this very fine rosé. But the Frenchie is not far behind, combining a dedication to Tolj’s consultant, world oenology superstar Michel Rolland, with the fact that Frenchie if the first Croatian white Bordeaux cuvee (Semillion and Sauvignon), nor is Tolj’s Pošip Posh.
Besides for commmunicology, semantics and semiology, the Zagreb entrepreneur Ernest Tolj is quite competent and brave when wines are in question. His Dingač redefined the style of this once globally best-known Croatian terroir, only to break with posh one of the largest Croatian wine taboos: Tolj had planted the indigenous Dalmatian, Korčula Pošip, in the middle of Istria in the vineyard Saint Ante!
This sacrilegious approach in Croatian winemaking may not have been seen before, if it wasn’t for an entire line of south Croatian winemakers attempting to produce sparklings. While their attempts end in quite undrinkable and somewhat funny results, Tolj’s emigrant Pošip is an unusually good wine for such an eccentric and innovative wine growing operation.
Posh is fresh, slightly flowery, slightly herbal, elegant, linear, and pleasant in the mouth, without temperament, heat and strong aromas of Dalmatian Pošips. Posh is so cleanly and precisely made, it does not have any flaw penalised in formal wine ratings. Okay, it also does not contain enough personality, but this is a new project, whose results we will follow with great curiosity in the coming years.
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