Last week Bancroft's Alex and Neb headed to Croatia and Slovenia with a group of trusty, enthusiastic, wine-trade clients. Over 48 hours they visited our esteemed producers Marjan Simcic and Ivica Matosevic.
Here's more of what they got up to. Alex Harper reports...
This was a
wine trip like no other. It would take us through 3 countries in 48 hours
visiting the lesser known premium production regions of Goriska Brda in
Slovenia and Istria in Croatia. It was
to prove to be a lesson in passion, art, and for our part, endurance as first
Marjan, and then Ivica opened their arms and their wine cellars to us with
exceptional generosity.
It was hot
in Slovenia when we arrived to the beautiful green hills of Goriska Brda, a
hill shared with Collio in neighbouring Italy. Marjan was swift to see us refreshed with chilled glasses of Ribolla. This is a local grape variety which is neutral
and all too often uninspiring in the wrong hands, however in the hands of
Marjan it became a rich, savoury and textural wine with beautiful freshness.
Perfect for reviving the somewhat jaded travellers.
The wine
tasting was integrated with lunch, a lovely way of showcasing the wines as they
should be drunk; with fresh local ingredients. Throughout lunch we were all held captivated by Marjan's fierce passion
for his land and his soil, with his wines as the ultimate expression of that.
His Pinot Grigio for instance; long a variety that has been abused by the bulk
producers, did not have the all too familiar pear drop aroma's of cold fermentation,
but is a rich, concentrated wine that is fermented at a warm 18-20 degrees with
wild yeasts followed by 8 months on the lees. As a consequence it has depth, complexity and length. Skin contact, or ‘skink contact’ as he
endearingly puts it, punctuated by banging the table with his hands to emphasis
it's importance, is central to the glorious weight and structure of his wines.
Though
Marjan practices biodynamics he is not interested in making a big song and
dance about it. He believes that he has simply found the best way to care for
his vines in order to obtain the strongest sense of place and highest quality
that he can. The fact that this is
through biodynamic means should not be stealing focus from the wine
itself. Marjan is refreshingly humble,
yet with single minded determination and vision; for once the usually rowdy
bunch of sommeliers and buyers were quiet, hanging onto his every word.
Marjan
produces three tiers of wine, the classic, the selection and the opoka (named
after the specific soil of that vineyard) and it was great to see individual
favourites coming from all 3 tiers; the Classic Pinot Grigio, the Ribolla
selection (seductive spiced richness with a long textural finish and juicy
acidity) the Opoka Sauvignon Blanc - a barrel fermented Sauvignon of epic
intensity, concentrative and integration, and the Opoka Merlot (inky black
depths of velvet dark fruit and mysterious spice.) Call me a snob but I never thought I would
rate Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio among my favourite wines!
The tasting
of different wines and vintages continued into dinner at Marjan’s house, and finally,
as one of Slovenia's top dj's began to spin some heavy beats (and looked mighty
confused when I asked him to play Neil Diamond) we were introduced to Leonardo,
Marjan's famous desert wine made from Ribolla. It was an added pleasure to drink
it with Leonardo himself, Marjan's delightful son who inspired the wines
creation.
And with
that we ticked Slovenia off our list and after a scant few hours sleep we hit
the road; destination, Croatia.
Croatia's
northern coastal wine region of Istria is wildly beautiful with jagged cliffs
and turquoise oceans, and it was down at a small jetty on the river that our
journey through Ivica's wines began. Starting
on the peer, oysters being shucked next to us, sun beaming down and bouncing
off the water, we started on his Traditional Method sparkling wine – 90%
Chardonnay, 10% Malvasia. This is a new
project that Ivica started a few years ago and it was interesting to taste his
first two vintages side by side as he explained the lessons he learnt at each
turn
In stark
contrast to Marjan, wine making does not run in the Matosevic family. This has
allowed Ivica, unshackled by family tradition to experiment to his heart’s content.
Affectionately known as 'Dr Malvesia', Ivica is a doctor of oenology and his
passion is Malvasia in its different guises. We were to taste young, crisp
intense Malvasia, rich, nutty, savoury 14 year old Malvasia, smokey fresh barrique
aged, floral and bitter almond Arcasia aged and stunningly complex oaked blended
Malvasia. A Malvasia masterclass by the
good doctor. As in Slovenia, these wines
were also served to us in conjunction with a spectacular array of local fish
including shark belly and shark liver pate.
With his
relaxed manner and disarming smile it was a delight to taste with him, his
'heart on his sleeve' manner and genuine interest in our opinions and feedback
proved that behind the easy charm is an intense desire to keep learning, to
keep pushing the boundaries and to keep improving. The fact that he wanted to show us library
wines in all stages of development because it is a fascinating intellectual
exercise in the life cycle of this variety rather than it being a 'hard sell'
exercise made it all the more pleasurable. Very rarely will a wine maker have the confidence to show you wines that
are ‘over the hill’ because it is interesting.
Ivica is not
confined to white wines – he also makes a lovely red blend – the Grimalda
red. It is a blend of 80% merlot, 20% a
local variety called Teran. His latest
vintage however is pretty much 50/50 and it was fascinating to see the
difference the extra Teran had on the wine.
It moved it from a rich, chocolatey wine to a vibrant crunchy, fresh and
complex wine. The higher proportion of
Teran definitely received a thumbs up from us. At the end, for a bit of fun we also tasted his ‘port’ style wine, to
much hilarity this had our Portuguese MS up in arms!!
And so we
were reluctantly forced to leave Ivica’s beautiful wines and head back to the
Italian border to catch our flight home; exhausted to a man but buoyed by all
we had learnt and tasted in such a short time.
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