It’s good to know that, while some of the wine festivals and events are no longer taking place, either at all or for some time, new ones seem to be appearing all the time. One of those new ones is the International Oeno-Gastro Festival WineRi, taking place for the first time this year, on February 22nd and 23rd. It is organized by the agency aha marketing, and will take place in the city of Rijeka, in the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Littoral, also known as the Governor’s Palace (Guvernerova palača), on the Museum Square in Rijeka. Some of the workshops and lectures of the Festival will be held at the PAR Business School, a few hundred meters from the Governor’s Palace. Additional parts of festival’s program and entertainment will take place in Bačva club, Kostrenka restaurant and wine & coffee bar “Kod Zajca”.
Lectures in the business school will be held each day from 10am until 1pm, and topics covered will range from the products with protected origin of the Primorje Gorski Kotar County, jarbola – an almost extinct indigenous Croatian wine variety from the region, lecture on wine and tourism held in English by a guest from Belgium, measurable criteria to compare Croatian viticulture and winemaking with others around the world and a lecture on how to put together a winelist for a restaurant or a wine bar. After the lectures two hours are allotted each day for the winemakers and people from the tourism and hospitality industry to get together, where the winemakers will get the chance to present their wines to those who will ultimately get to sell most of it to the consumers; those are, of course, bar, restaurant and hotel owners and managers.
After that, in the afternoons, the doors of the festival will open for the public, and those wanting to attend will have to buy the festival glass for 75 kuna each day, and taste as much wine as they like from around 70 winemakers that have confirmed to be presenting at the festival. In the afternoons some more popular lectures will be held at the museum, with topics such as decanting of wine, presentation of Slavonia red wines (held by the Graševina Association, which is a bit, let’s just say – odd!), presentation of sparkling wines from the County that spent some time submerged in the sea and a discussion of wine and books. After 7 pm, when Governer’s palace closes, WTF parties (this time the abbreviation means Wine Testing Fest party) will take place at Bačva and Kod Zajca.
The winemakers presenting at the festival are quite diverse: almost all of the major winemakers from the County will be present and many interesting winemakers from the neighbouring, Istria County are coming as well. Not many presenters from Dalmatia, which is a shame, with one notable exception: Skaramuča winery; however there are quite a few winemakers arriving from Slavonia, probably in an effort to offer as many of their wines to the tourists arriving to northern portion of the Croatian sea in the summer. And, from the list of the presenters it’s obvious that there’s going to be quite a number of producers of various cured meat products as well, so if you plan on going to the festival, do not miss the oportunity to try some of their products as well!
