Bancroft Wines Blog: A little Serbo-Croat goes a long way, AKA Neb's Summer Holiday July 2013

Thursday, 18 July 2013

A little Serbo-Croat goes a long way, AKA Neb's Summer Holiday July 2013

0300 is not the time to get up unless there is very good reason....flying to visit Marjan Simcic in Slovenia and Ivica Matosovic in Croatia provided the reason to get out of bed. The only good thing is that you can pack an awful lot into a day like this, especially when you don't turn in until gone four the next morning, but that is getting ahead of ourselves.

With the creme de la creme of the London On Trade inhaling cappuccinos and putting a brave face on things, we were off on our way to the rolling hills of Collio. As the hills reared up we realise we are getting into serious wine country, be it Italian or Slovenian or a combination of both, which is generally the way of things around the border.

After the exertion of the morning, we were treated to lunch overlooking the vineyards and a glass or two of Marjan's Sauvagnonasse & his unoaked, fresh Ribolla to get the taste buds racing.

Then a mini tour around their small (18 ha) vineyard holdings, explaining the why's & wherefores of slope, exposure, micro-climate and the famous and revered Opoka soils which give mineral backbone to the wines.

A quick turn around and we are back with Marjan & Valeria for supper, where we are treated to some large format epics such as magnums of his beautiful Pinot Noir and double magnum of Opoka Sauvignon Blanc - lucky us!

This fuelled the animated discussions about skin contact, sulphur and minimum intervention in the winemaking process and the ad hoc euro disco which ensued until the early hours.

Having prised the troops out of bed we headed off to Croatia, after a quick tour of Trieste. We were greeted with an oyster feast with Ivica's traditional method sparking Malvasia, which did have kill or cure written all over it. A mere few hours earlier the shellfish were in the briny and you could tell as they were delicious! With Croatia very recently a member of the EU, we will see their star burning brighter & brighter in the very near future. Ivica then provided us with a locally forraged lunch including delicious wild mushrooms, (slightly) poached pheasant to pair with his cracking wines. Hard to have favourites, but the Antigua Malvasia & Grimalda white ( malvasia, chardonnay &sauvignon) were super sensational and showed so much esoteric interest, which served to stimulate more passionate wine debate.