This is one of the most intriguing wine stories of the last 500 years! The Dalmatian Coast (formerly part of Yugoslavia) of today’s Croatia has long-been a favorite vacation spot, and a great wine-growing location.
Today, the wine world is re-discovering Croatia’s wonders.
Among those discoveries: Five wines are the same, or are direct descendants of one grape, as proven by DNA testing (you can still call the USA wine Zinfandel):
- Primitivo is Tribidrag, transplanted from Croatia to Puglia (Italy’s boot heel) in the late 1700s;
- Zinfardal (the original spelling of Zinfandel) is Tribidrag, brought to the USA from a Viennese Empire greenhouse in 1823;
- Crljenak Kaštelanski is Tribidrag, and was lost for years; it has now been found and DNA-matched in a vineyard near Split, Croatia;
- Tribidrag is now the accepted name for this grape and wine, because it is the oldest name; traced to Croatia in the 1500 (thus the 500 years in the title of this article);
- Plavac Mali is the Croatian son of Tribidrag and Dobričić, a red grape from a nearby island.
Visiting the Source
After helping to organize a 2013 conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, we spent a day of wine tasting on the Dingac peninsula (thank you again, Mladen Radujković!), visiting a half dozen wineries. Continue reading “500 Years Of Great Wine, Born In Croatia”