Decanter Winners' Showcase: The best of Croatian wine

The luxurious 5-star Kempinski Hotel Adriatic Istria Croatia hosted Croatia’s inaugural Decanter Winners’ Showcase in June 2024, organised by Vinistra, the Istrian winemakers’ association. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Vinistra has been operating since 1994 with the main goal of improving and developing viticulture and winemaking in Istria. Today, it consists of more than 120 Croatian wine producers from the area of Istria and Kvarner.

Located close to the coastal town of Umag in Istria, the grand venue offered a quiet taste of seaside luxury where the cool breezes of the Alps meet the sunshine of the Adriatic coast. This made it a fitting location to celebrate the record-breaking performance of Croatia’s wine producers at this year’s DWWA, with 366 medals in total.

Vinistra guests take helicopter trip in Istria — Professional guests took a helicopter trip to see Istria from the air.

Terroir – A bird’s-eye view

Professional guests at the Decanter Winners’ Showcase, including wine writers, buyers and Decanter judges, were lucky enough to take a helicopter trip to see Istria from the air (a trip also available to tourists). The tour headed over the beautiful, wooded landscape, passing over quaint, medieval, hilltop villages like Grožnjan and Motovun. Sights included sweeping olive groves – Istria’s olive oil is regularly crowned best in the world – and the vivid, turquoise waters of the Adriatic, with its historic ports Poreč and Rovinj.

The Istrian landscape is not merely breathtaking – it is key to understanding the wines. The helicopter flight offered a bird’s-eye view of exactly where Istria’s coastal soils meet the inland terroirs. At lower elevations, closer to the sea, the earth is a deep, rusty red, and typically gives wines more structure and body, while the carbonate-rich white soils of the interior instead offer fragrance, elegance and complexity.

Croatian wine vineyards seen from the air — A helicopter offered a bird’s eye view of exactly where Istria’s coastal soils meet the inland terroirs.

Award-winning varieties

Many of the best winemakers in Croatia are no longer chasing concentration and oak in their wines, and are instead focusing on harmony and a sense of place. And if the indigenous Malvazija Istarska is Istria’s superstar white grape, Teran is stepping up to become the standout red variety.

With overcropping now a thing of the past, today Teran makes excitingly vivid wines: juicy with a firm savoury backbone, incredibly food-friendly and offering great ageing potential. Wines made from Teran picked up two golds and eight silver medals at the 2024 Decanter awards – quite a change of fortune for the variety. But Istria is not restricted to its local grapes: other DWWA-medal-winning wines included great renditions of international grape varieties that suit the Alpine-meets-Adriatic climate.

Croatian wine made from Malvazija Istarska — The indigenous Malvazija Istarska is Istria’s superstar white grape.

Outstanding producers

Visitors to the Winners’ Showcase experienced this fascinating diversity of wine styles first-hand through an introductory guided tasting and a programme of visits to leading wineries, which were as varied as the wines they produce. The pioneering 4th- and 5th-generation family winery Kozlović offers stunning views over the village of Momjan. Three brothers operate the beautiful Rossi Winery & Distillery. Meneghetti, as well as a superb winery, hotel and restaurant, boasts a collection of 40 Malvazija cultivars and clones. Kabola impresses with its beautiful organic vineyards and groundbreaking amphora wines, and Agrolaguna, the largest in the region, remains a standard-setting winery.

Croatian wine being tasted — Meneghetti boasts a collection of 40 Malvazija cultivars and clones.

Quality from across the country

The Decanter Winners’ Showcase was about more than just Istria, and featured award-winning wines from across Croatia. The celebration brought together producers from continental Slavonia in the east, the home of white grape Graševina (Welschriesling); the cooler Croatian Uplands to the north, with vibrant whites and fine sparkling wines; and the Mediterranean warmth of the sun-drenched rocky vineyards of Dalmatia in the south.

Each area showcased their own wine stories through great examples of grapes as varied as Pušipel (aka Furmint), Pošip, Trnjak, Babić, Graševina and Frankovka, plus several international grapes like Traminer, Sauvignon, Riesling, Syrah and both Cabernets – all with a Croatian twist and identity.

As it celebrates its record DWWA medal haul, Croatia, with its expressive wines, dramatic scenery, ancient history and amazing gastronomy, has so much to offer the curious visitor – and what better way to enjoy it than with a glass of award-winning Croatian wine in hand.