Wine road

istra-14Many Istrians consider a inexplicable unearthly sacred potion, a necessity and passion, the culture of living, as nourishment and liquor, prayer and a curse. Istrians have been historically devoted to the grapevine. A proverbial saying confirms it; Wine comes from grapevine and milk from a goat. Wheat is life, while wine is a myth and as our elders would say, the bread is for the body and wine is for the soul. Istria, this miniature continent and the largest peninsula of the Adriatic coast, slopes gently into the sea towards the eternally sunny southwest. The wine’s bouquet and body is enriched by the special land structure, i.e. the red soil spreading over the littoral and the white soil covering the hinterland area. The vineyards spread over approx.15.200 acres of land. The western viticulture area (in the vicinity of Poreč, Buje, Pula and Rovinj) is the largest, its vineyards covering approx. 14.430 acres. The central Istria wine-growing hills (around Buzet and Pazin) spread over some 516.44 acres, while in the eastern part (near Labin), there are around 255 acres of vine grapes.

Over the past century the Istriany malvazija has the title of the most famous and most present wine of our peninsula. Depending on the chemical processing procedure, nurture and vintage year, its color varies from straw yellow to golden yellow. Its scent primarily reminds of the accacia flower scent. The contents of its main components make it an average to-full bodied wine, its volume of alcohol ranging from 11.5 to 13.5 with delicate bouquet and fresh taste. It complements most superbly with the entire variety of the Mediterranean cuisine. The Istrian counterbalance of malvazija is teran. Teran and its subtype refosc are both considered the old, indigenous wines of Istria. We tend to call the red wines black, mostly because of teran’s intense, deep, ruby color. The local farmer gently whispers that its color is similar to hare’s blood and it can be drunk like milk. Its bouquet is fruit-like and its special taste is easily recognized. It is in excellent harmony with heavier, more caloric dishes, such as local stew, sauces and venison. A great many connoisseurs of Istrian wines will tend to rank the highest the Istrian muscate or, to be more specific, the muscate produced in and around Momjan, owing to it’s gold-like color, intense bouquet of wild clove pink and it’s exquisite aroma. Dry and sweet. Worthy complement of desserts and many other delicacies. Even aphrodisiac power has been attributed to it.

We are proposing to you this WINE MAP OF ISTRIEN with the marked wine roads and trails in order to make you familiar with our wine-cellars and small wine-vaults. A larger, more explicit symbol (flag) was used to indicate wine-cellars, i.e. the ones offering greater selection of wine, modern technology, a bottled wine assortment. A smaller sign (barrel) was used to mark smaller rural wine-cellars and vaults using traditional vintage methods and offering a more modest selection of not necessarily bottled wine, but nonetheless, of good quality and at a more favourable price. We are convinced that you are about to get lost trying to figure a way to move across our wine roads, but it can happen to us local people as well. Istria is a country of numberless trails and small hamlets; you set out for one hamlet and turn out in another but you needn’t worry, there is good wine in there, too.

Dear visitors, you are kindly requested to announce your visit to the wine cellar by phone.

The Open cellars day

DANI VINAIt is a project that was firstly presented in 1993 in Italy under the patronage of the association Movimento per il turismo del vino (Movement for the wine tourism); with its site in Montalcino (Tuscany). The day of celebrating the world’s wine day changes every year but it’s always on the last Sunday in May.

The initiative was launched because no one of the responsible persons or institutions in wine tourism recognized the great potential that was delineating. Apart few exceptions, most of the wine cellars in Italy weren’t accessible to tourists. Today, the President of the Association says; Nobody believed in the Wine day project, so only the Tuscan winemakers joined, mostly for friendly reasons, and not because they really believed that it was a potentially worthily project. In the contrary, already in the first year a great affluence of visitors was registered to almost one hundred vintners that joined the initiative.

In 1994, the second year more than 500 vintners from 14 Italian regions joined the project to reach an affluence of over 150.000 lovers of the noble drops. Amongst the strong presence of the Tuscan winemakers, the greatest improvement was made by the regions Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino Alto Adige which attracted almost one third of the above mentioned number of visitors. In 1995 the project was joined by Sonoma Valley – California, the company Suntory with its properties in Japan; province Yamanashi (eastern of Tokyo), Stellenbosch (South Africa), Conarwarra in Australia, Mendoza in Argentina and some regions in Chile and Uruguay.

Goriška brda (Slovenia) and Istria (Croatia) joined the project in 1999 for the first time when the whole project reached over 1.000 wine cellars in the world. After the successful first edition in 1999 with 37 wine cellars and about 800 visitors, during the last edition 2006 there were 80 wine cellars that registered an affluence of over 11.000 visitors.

The project aims to conjure up the story of family traditions, of vineyards and locations, of cultivated varieties, to narrate about the gastronomy, the culture and the most important tourist information to the surrounding regions.

NAME
LOCATION
PHONE
Vižinada, Narduči 5
052 446 226
Vižinada, Narduči 3
052 446 229
Motovun, Kaldir 7
052 691 322
Krasica, Brajki 104
052 776 175
Umag, Koreniki 86
052 730 196
Savudrija, Bašanija bb
052 759 250
Momjan, Valle 78
052 779 177
Momjan, Kremenje 96b
052 779 047
Sv. Lovreč, Krunčići
052 380 597
Poreč, 43. Istarske divizije 27
052 431 586
Vižinada, Lašići 16
052 446 281
Bale, St. Meneghetti bb
052 528 815
Višnjan, Markovac 14
052 449 251
Višnjan, Radovani 14
052 462 166
Nova Vas, Kosinožići 26
052 421 367
Show all »
As the old and wise saying goes, the wine tale begins in the vineyards. The tale about wine roads of Istria and the Istrian wine renaissance originated in the early ’90s of the last century, primarily in the minds of a few wine lovers and of the young, enthusiastic winemakers, who wanted to make some changes.

A cliché about Istrian people as being «excellent wine-growers but bad winemakers» has become quite fatiguing and, in order to talk their fathers into producing wine in a completely new way in terms of technology, some sons had to get into an argument with them, while others took winemaking as an adventure worth trying since they have never dealt with it earlier. Wine roads of Istria have become customary nowadays, as have the quality wines which can be tasted in about a hundred wine cellars all over Istria. But that wasn’t always the case; merely a few of those visiting these cellars today spare a moment, wandering at how things were some ten years ago.

The winemakers we are presenting you in this booklet deserve full credit for making the present-day winemaking reality more alluring than the one existing not so long ago. They are pioneers in the best of ways of what might be referred to as the blend of tradition and the new way of thinking about winemaking in general. It is their special, almost lover’s attitude, towards the traditional, indigenous quality wines of Istria, such as Malvasia, the Momjan Muscatel and Teran, that makes their products so interesting. They are really putting an effort to make good wine from the «minor» quality grapes, which can be enjoyed all over the world. Currently, we have made a selection of the following winemakers for your own reference, but in the future, there will also be room for others in our next printings. For all those who, apart from fine wine, will make extra efforts fo offer some new related services, nicely refurbished tasting rooms, a recognizable brand…

Therefore, we truly hope that this publication will provoke other local winemakers to try and combine tradition and quality with more enthusiasm and passion.

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