As February draws to a close, it is time to look forward to March. For Kathy and me, that means looking forward to our visit to Croatia, it wines, people, vineyards and the International Wine Tourism Conference. At last year’s IWINETC, Vina Croatia presented some of the wines from Croatia. The well organized event wet the appetite for attendees. During the wine tasting session, 15 wines were presented from 14 producers. The wineries present represented three of Croatia’s wine growing regions: Danube/Slavonia, Istria and Dalmatia.

IWINETC attendees had the opportunity to taste white wines made from Graševina, Malvasia, Istriana and Pošip as well as red wines Plavic Mali and Babi?. There were also a few international varieties including Gewürtztraminer, Merlot and Syrah. We have always been interested in trying new varietal wines.

To further wet our appetite, we are en-route to New York City. Tomorrow Vina Croatia will have their 2nd Grand Portfolio Tasting at the Astor Center. Thirty producers will be on hand to present 100 wines. We are looking forward to tasting wines made with varietal grapes that are new to us. We plan to visit four of the thirty wineries next month in Croatia and perhaps a fifth winery during the IWINETC. We have already contacted several other wineries that will be present at Vina Croatia and have done email interviews with them. We plan to write articles for each winery we visit in Croatia as well as the ones at Vina Croatia that have responded to our emails. So far we have drafts of stories about Vina Belje, Boškinac and Roxanich.

Spending a few days in New York City also gives us an opportunity to visit our daughter Erin. Surprisingly, it was Erin who met the winemaker at Bibich a few years ago and had him autograph a bottle of his wine for Kathy and me. Croatia has been on our radar ever since and we look forward to the opportunity that the International Wine Tourism Conference has presented by holding their conference in Zagreb.

Cheers,
Terry