When we think of wine, countries like France, Italy, and Spain often come to mind as the leading producers of the world’s finest vintages.
However, tucked away in the heart of Europe lies a hidden gem waiting to be explored – Croatia.
We are talking about ancient vineyards, indigenous grapes, unique flavor profiles, the history of winemaking in Croatia and so much more.
And leading us through this amazing region is Jennifer Kerum. Jennifer is the go-to wine expert for Croatian wine. She is the product of a Californian mom and Croatian dad who instilled a love for both cultures in her. And it was this love of her Croatian culture which led her to her love of Croatian wine.
So, if you are ready to learn about the vibrant wine culture of Croatia press play and let’s go!
Resources
• Croatian Premium Wine – https://www.croatianpremiumwine.com/
• Ep 39 Why you should visit Walla Walla – https://www.corkandfizz.com/wine-blog/guide-to-wine-podcast-episode-39
• Ep 15 Brooke Delmas interview – https://www.corkandfizz.com/wine-blog/guide-to-wine-podcast-episode-15
Offers from Jennifer Kerum:
• Email sail@anchorcroatia.com to join the Food and Wine Cruise for 2580 EURO per person and mention this podcast. Price is good until the cabins are sold out
• Receive 20% off a customized sailing trip when mentioning the Cork & Fizz Guide to Wine podcast
• Receive 20% off Wine Tours in Croatia when mentioning the Cork & Fizz Guide to Wine podcast
Connect with Jennifer Kerum
• Website – https://www.anchorcroatia.com/
• Instagram – @theanchorcroatia (https://www.instagram.com/theanchorcroatia/)
What did you think of the episode? Text me! (https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2189095/open_sms)
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Head to www.corkandfizz.com/summerwinechallenge (http://www.corkandfizz.com/summerwinechallenge) to sign up.
Don’t Forget to Download my Free Wine Tasting Guide! – https://www.corkandfizz.com/free-wine-tasting-guide
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here at Cork and Fizz I’m all about helping you discover new wines yes I know it’s easy to just continue to buy your favorite bottle but I have to tell you you’re missing out did you know there are over 10,000 different grape varieties and over 65,000 wine producers worldwide trust me there are so many more delicious wines out there for you to try and your next favorite bottle is just waiting for you to find it in an effort to encourage you to try something new I’m bringing back my free Summer Wine challenge that’s right it’s free head to the link in my show notes corken fizz.com suum wine challenge to sign up this challenge will last six weeks and during that time all I ask is that you try six new wines and fill out a simple tasting form on my website for each one I’ll also be sending you exclusive weekly emails with recommendations for Regions and wines to explore plus you’ll have access to not one but two free live virtual tastings where you get to learn about and taste wine with me and fellow challenge goers if you successfully taste and record six new Wines in the six weeks you’ll receive a class pass which gives you access to a virtual tasting party of your choosing with my tasting Club the cork crew plus everyone who completes the challenge will be entered to win a free one-year membership to the court crew with one lucky winner being chosen at the end of July we start June 19th but you can sign up any time between now and before the challenge ends on July 30th head to the link in my show notes to join me oh and did I mention it’s free [Music] [Music] interested in learning about wine but not sure where to start you’re in the right place welcome to the corkin Fizz guide to Wine podcast I’m your host Haley Bowman and I’m so glad you’re here I’m a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and founder of the seattle-based wine tasting business corkin Fizz it is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable and lots of fun you can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight and so much more whether you’re a casual wine sipper or a total cork dork like myself this podcast is for you so grab yourself a glass and let’s dive [Music] in on today’s episode of the Cork and Fizz guide to Wine podcast you are in for a special treat we are going to be talking about Croatian wine with a gal who spends half her year in Croatia every year her name is Jennifer kierum and I’ve actually had a chance to drink wine with Jen in person because she joined me on the wala wala trip she is such a fun burst of energy and so passionate you’re going to learn so much during this podcast and things that don’t really get talked about in the wine world we don’t hear about Croatian wine very much and so it’s really an honor to get to have her on the podcast to share what she knows and she’s going to tell you about a fun food and wine cruise that she has coming up in Croatia plus get excited about this a special deal just for you as listeners of this podcast so I’m going to step back and let Jen introduce herself and do all the talking but you’re GNA love this make sure to stick around like I said until the end we have some special offers for you if you want to check out Croatia wine which like how could you not let’s start first with kind of an intro who are you and what do you do oh gosh that’s a hard question so what do I do and who am I I guess it depends on the day so which is actually a true story I was gonna say actually now that I think about it for you yeah that that’s a good fit it actually depends on the day so I grew up with a Croatian father and an American mother and so I was kind of the product of two worlds or I guess like a Global child as you can say so I actually got to grow up on the Adriatic Sea in Croatia which was amazing like every single summer I don’t think I appreciated it as a kid to be honest with you I mean you were just used to it you’re like this is what I do this is part of my home right well the other the other problem was is so we would go to Croatia and like my school would start in September typically and so we go to cation we go to the village and we’re you know my grandmother was and my aunt was and actually it kind of ties into wine because I remember it was like right before I would leave crotia we would always have to go and have a whole day of wine picking worst day of my life every single time they hot and you’re tired and your feet hurt like you’re covered in dirt and mud and bugs and mosquitoes you’re like this is not fun I don’t get this why do people like wine I know and so actually true story my thoughts of wine growing up was just this Association of just like hard work not enjoyment at all but any going back so I grew up kind of in both worlds between the US and Croatia and my parents also started their own film and television catering company so I grew up in film so half a year I actually work in film the other half of the year I own a yacht company in Croatia and I also have I just recently opened a wine tour business in Croatia and to add on top of it I have a food and wine cruise in Croatia so many exciting things I love it like I said it depends on the day what I do yeah you know you just you put on your different hats exactly I have multiple hats yes I love it okay well let’s dive in a little bit deeper so I I do love that we kind of started this off you’re like okay wine just equals hard work as a kid it didn’t make sense what was it that kind of like turned the page or turned the table for you and what sparked your interest in wine to dive deeper into it well honestly I grew up in California and you know California has amazing wine regions as you know and in my 20s personally I hated beer so what did I do and go out and drink and so wine kind of piqu my interest and I realized that I fell in love with these big bold luscious Napa Valley and um when I moved to New York City I was constantly chasing that kind of taste everything but I had a hard time describing what I wanted you know when I went out it was kind of like it was like I want this wine but how do I tell people yes right and I’m you come across that too Haley right like when you’re teaching about wines and everything it’s like how do you explain the flavor that you want right yeah I find like most people are like I know what I like how do I explain that to anybody like getting those words is one of the hardest things exactly exactly so when I was in New York and I have an even crazier background because I actually came from medical school too so you’re like stick around for the long long version we’ll have that as the Extended Cut and then break this podcast up into different ones of like what time of year anyway yeah I wanted to communicate I wanted to talk about wine I wanted to find the wines that I loved so I ended up going to IC at the time that was here and they had a sumon course and um I learned everything that there is to be learned about wines and then I remember coming back that next summer after I had all this knowledge and I was drinking wine in Croatia and I was like my God the wine here is delicious why anyone tell me which is a lie fair fair you’re like well because one nobody in the US knew that the Croatian wine was so good exactly like no one knew it was so good and the other problem is my association with wine was harer yeah no there there’s definitely a depending on how you see it there just a quick reminder if you are not on my mailing list yet what are you waiting for I would love for you to join when you do you’ll get a free Shopping Guide that has 15 of my favorite wines under $15 head to corkin fizz.com scroll down to the bottom and there’ll be a little section where you can join the mailing list I sent out a Weekly Newsletter filled with wine tips recommendations special offers and so much more now let’s get back to the show I do want to spend plenty of time talking about creation wine but first I have to ask about the yacht business like how does one get into the yacht business and what is it like so my story I never like if I could say what I wanted to do when I grew up I never thought Yachts my story is a love story actually I know oh that’s so cute definitely a Boy Meets Girl kind of situation so I obviously fell in love with Croatia growing up and then really fell in love with it in you know my 20s and I would spend a month at a time in Croatia and i’ always was thinking in the back of my head like how can I do this forever right you can’t just be in a country every single year for the rest of your life without doing some sort of job I mean I hope it’s possible I mean unless you can be a trust fun baby in which case that sounds wonderful but uh not the case for all of us not the case for me at all so I went to ca One Summer and I fell in love with a boy there and I was actually living at Australia during the time and we were actually I remember this so clearly so we were sitting on hir on the Rocks ironically drinking a glass of wine and it was I to say an ultimatum it was basically a conversation of like okay Jennifer like we’ve just had the most magical summer together right you know it was one of those Boy Meets Girl girl runs away girl comes back you know the end and it’s kind of like what are we going to do here and it was kind of born on the shores of hir while drinking a glass of wine he had been working in the yachting industry for 10 15 years and I knew that I loved Croatia and I liked the idea of being on a yacht and drinking a glass of wine I mean who doesn’t like that idea we started there I knew nothing about Yachts I knew that I loved Croatia and then that next year when I started cleaning and sanding boats before the season I was like this is nothing like drinking a glass of wine they lied to you I will say there’s a sayane in the voting World they say the two best days of your life is the day you buy your first boat and the day that you sell it that’s fair that’s fair you know you’ve really fallen into those worlds of like because there’s the saying in the wine world of like how do you make a small small fortune in wine you start with a large Fortune oh there you go yeah so you you really found those two industries didn’t you it is true it is true and then from there it kind of created this like beautiful marriage between yawning and wine and until now where I’ve literally created a complete separate company that’s just focused on wine yeah well that kind of brings me into that next question I was curious if it sounds like I mean even just from a kid you initially had this you know passion for travel and that extended into adulthood and now you have that interest in wine do you feel like those are very well connected 100% like definitely wherever I go to I travel quite a bit you know I’m traveling every three to four days and because of work not just because I’m a crazy person who travels hey that’s not crazy that’s just you you taken advantage of having fun ex and one of the first things I like to do is I like to go to a place and I will look up the local wineries like that’s a huge thing for me I mean I was just in New Mexico and have you had new Mexican wine before it’s on my list I don’t well no wait I have I’ve had the New Mexico that sparkling wine gret or whatever it is yeah ex so we do a lot so me too like so I’ve tried you know sparkling wine before and I was just an alberquerque and obviously I looked up what wineries were nearby and I went to there’s one called uh Shihan I think oh I’m probably butchering the name I tried their sarra and their cabon 7on and it was insanely delicious wow one of the fascinating things for me about their cab specifically was it almost tasted like an amaron it had a lot of like right it had a lot of like those dried aspects like those you know dried plums and raisins I asked them I said why is this wine what it is and one of the most fascinating things that they told me was basically it gets really hot in um New Mexico so it actually tends to burn the grapes a little bit like physically burn the grapes and so that’s why a lot of times they’ll get kind of like that raisiny kind of essence on their calvs oh interesting okay I like that they’re leading into it they’re just like this happen so we can’t control the weather and we’re just going to see what we can do with it in the in the wine making exactly so traveling and wine is like is Life For Me essentially oh so so fun I do want to make sure we say uh your yacht business it’s called anchor Croatia correct it’s called anchor Croatia so my yacht business is called anchor Croatia and another thing that we do is or I do specifically is I do e food and wine cruise yes and one of those is coming up right yes I’m so excited about it so it’s August 24th to 31st and um we go from dubovik to split so are you a fan of Game of Thrones at all Haley oh yes yes absolutely so Dubrovnik is actually King’s Landing fun fact that is so freaking cool I’m so mad the only reason I’m not going on this trip I love my parents my mom always listen to this podcast I love you Mom but they are visiting during that time that you um are doing this otherwise this sounds so amazing and how freaking cool is that you be like I get food and wine in crotia plus I get to pretend that I’m in Game of Thrones for a second oh exactly and so it’s really for me too like there’s other cruises in Croatia but like none of them is really focused on the flavors the authenticity of the country so one of my personal favorite things about the country in general is just is the food like it’s something like even something eating something simple as like a tomato there you know it’s like it’s the best tomato ever on this cruise we get to island hopping you get to literally jump right off the ship into like the most beautiful picturesque water we visit Seaside towns we actually get to go to a third generation owned restaurant on the sea and we eat everything from his garden uh fresh CAU fish that day and of course his homemade wine oh wonderful that sounds so fun BR your parents there we go man I can I can barely get my dad to Seattle let Al Lo if I’m like Dad we’re going to Croatia one day one day we’ll make it out there but I will make sure for those that are listening this should release you’ll still have plenty of time to do that just you know go on an adventure have fun we’ll put the link in the description so folks can learn more about it now before we leave talking about Croatia and the your travel and all of this cuz we’re going to do our deep dive into the wine during the wala wala trip as I mentioned in the intro Jen that’s how we met Jen joined me in walaw Wala for that trip and oddly enough like I can’t believe this happened one of the other guests was doing a honeymoon in Croatia like what were the odds it was just one of those where it’s like oh what a small world but you shared such amazing tips and I don’t want you to give everything away right this is your this is your job this is your livelihood but I thought maybe we take advantage if you could give us like maybe like your top three tips other than come on my food and wine cruise which is like the top tip but after that your top three tips for traveling to Croatia cuz I feel like it’s getting to the top of people’s list these days like people want to visit yeah well you know what’s interesting too is so when I was a kid no one knew where Croatia was and I had to explain it as like the country next to Italy so but these days I say that I’m half creation and it really is a sexy place to go to well first of all there’s 1244 islands off the coast OFA yeah I know but wow wow yeah so I guess my first tip about Croatia I’m actually heading there tomorrow is don’t squeeze everything in what I tend to find with people who come there is especially from the states and it’s understandable you’re traveling across the world and you only have maybe a week and they try to do so much stuff but the problem is is that there’s so much to do and see in Croatia and you’ll just spend too much time traveling a lot of people will do the duar split kind of bucket list I would stick to two different places and um there’s actually a cretian word called FAA and it means the art of doing nothing I love that and I also know I would have such a hard time doing that that’s really if you really want to experience Creation in my opinion I think you just need to slow it down that’s the culture like for example when you go to Croatia people will sit for a coffee one coffee for 3 hours dang yes yes yes so my first tip would be come to Catia but don’t overpopulate your itinerary really enjoy it go to the Sea eat delicious food my second tip is so we’re used to sandy beaches right in in the United States they are small Pebbles over there so I’m used to walking on them but lot of Americans it’s not the same it’s a good thing to call out wasn’t uh the GU that was on the trip she was like so bringing water shoes is that dorky or should I do it sounding like it’s a yes yeah I was like you know what for your mental health and body bring it and who knows maybe you’ve built up the calluses and you’ll be fine but you’ll be so much more thankful that you have them exactly exactly and then my third tip really just focuses around food just try everything there uh I would even go as far as get out of the main like if you go to dubovik I don’t like to eat in the old town I get out of the old town and there’s these things called kabs and that’s where everything is just homemade you’re going to get like homemade olive oil and homemade cheese and just everything locally sourced so eat everything try all of the wine because you won’t be able to find it in the United States and leave with at least 12 bottles I like that that’s great advice all right before we get to this our last question before we get into our Croatian wine Deep dive I usually save it for the end but like I said I want to kind of second half I’ll be about Croatian wine we talked about the cruise but just maybe like looking down the line I feel like this is always a fun question especially for someone like you where you’re like entrepreneur mindset doing lots of different things and have all these ideas what’s next for you anything new on the horizon or anything new you’d like to do but you maybe just haven’t set in motion yet well actually I’m really haven’t told anyone this except for my partners this is actually huge I’m actually currently writing a book about creation life no way oh so exciting yeah and um I was going to say this for later but I’m just telling you now and um I’m really I’m hoping to get it out in the next year and um because what I found is when I was doing my own research you know a couple you know years ago there wasn’t a lot of resources on Croatian wine and there is some but it’s more focused towards like a traveler coming to Croatia and experiencing but for wine people or wine professionals who want to like deep dive on like the terroir and the soil and the temperature and the microclimates it doesn’t exist so it’s a thing that I’m doing and I’m really excit Ah that’s so cool oh my gosh I can’t wait that is exactly what I I love seeing those I have one Jane Lopes just put one out on Australia cuz it was kind of the same thing she’s like there are maybe some guides out there you know we get a bunch of Shad from Australia blah blah blah she’s like there is so much more happening here and no one has written the book that says like you know here’s like your Basics when you want to learn about it or like I just did a tasting on uh Lebanese wine Lebanon and trying to find information on wines from Lebanon was very challenging even like my go-to resources I mean the wine Bible things like that they didn’t have much on it at all I know I’m actually excited to get into the history of wine about Croatia because it will kind of reflect on why it’s like that but I do agree I think on some of the more unknown regions and maybe that is because of access to the wine there isn’t a lot of resources and so my goal is in the next year so hopefully in a year from now we’ll have another podcast absolutely I’m I’m scheduling it in right now so I’m going to hold you to it we be done by then and then you could hopefully come on my food and wine gr yes absolutely I’m loving all of this we’ve got it all planned out be great what we’ll do is we’ll you’ll read the book and we’ll just Island hop and try all the wines as there we go perfect all right this is our perfect segue then into let’s talk catian wine and I figured we’ll kind of start I always like to start at the beginning so like basically what do you think folks would be surprised to hear well first of all folks I think some would be surprised that there is a lot of wine in Croatia they’ve maybe maybe heard of it but like even I mean even for me as a wine expert I mean I’ve heard of like Slovenia and like Lebanon and Georgia but but not really Croatia much can you start with like maybe just a little history and like your short intro of like what would you tell people is the world of wine in Croatia yeah so one of the fascinating things to me is that Croatia has one of the oldest wine regions so it goes back to the yyan tribes that came and after that it was the Greeks and they came to the islands of viz and Cula and H and fun fact on the island of H is a town called starigrad and it’s one of the oldest towns in all of Europe and beyond that it’s one of the oldest places where they’ve planted planted wine for over 24 2,400 years wow so there is actually a huge history of wine and wine making like I said going back from the Greeks then the Romans in fact on the island of viz there’s Vineyards that have never even been touched by fxra so guess that makes sense with it because it’s an island right so it’d be hard for the flra to get there exactly exactly so especially viz so there is a grape on viz called vuga and it’s an indigenous grape on viz Island and you have Vineyards that have been there for more than 2400 years really and even like so there are people tending to those Vineyards and making wine out of the vines correct I mean obviously throughout the years they’ve done all kinds of tuning and all these other things and stuff like that but yeah it’s the same location a lot of times same families pass through generations so for me when I’m talking about Croatian wine it’s like basically you have to talk about politics because unfortunate but it’s the reality of the situation Croatia could have been one of the most important producers as much as Italy or France um just because of where it’s located because of its climate I mean especially in Dalmatia you have very warm Summers mild Winters so many grapes can grow there it’s amazing terrain so much Sunshine but politics always goes back back to politics yes yes i’ I’ve heard that a lot from like also like when I did the research into like Georgia or Lebanon too they places where like it I think does Croatia I know it’s near Italy so it’s not as close to these regions but I would still consider it part of like the ancient world when we think of like the different types of wine like there’s like the new world which is everywhere besides Europe essentially where like grape Vines were brought then there’s the old world which is Europe where we think of like where modern wine making began but then there’s a Time even before that where like true wine making in like the very first Vines and that’s the ancient world and so does CA fit into that category 100% okay so this is where it gets really interesting so ctia was a prominent producer of wine in fact even when it was the Austrian Hungarian Empire you know wines from Croatia were being actually sought out and shipped all over but the problem was in 1918 to 1991 it was under Yugoslavia so it was under communist Rule and communism didn’t allow for independent wine makers to sell wines and so what happened was is if you were a farmer and you had owned these Vineyards hundreds of years you had a choice you could either basically continue to make wine for yourself and produce it for yourself or you can sell it to the state and that is exactly and that was that is the biggest problem that is what happened with Croatia where to me it’s so sad because it’s like it really is one of these ancient world places it it still has I mean there’s today there still exists about 150 indigenous grapes before that it was like like estimated maybe 600 indigenous grapes existed in Croatia and a lot of it got lost because of communism because of War but the cool side of that like the opposite side of that and what’s fascinating about Croatia is that even today like I would say 70% of families own their own Vineyards and they produce their own whites and it goes back to the fact where wine is life in Croatia it really is I mean my aunt my boyfriend’s parents like my grandmother no grows their own grapes to make wine and um so when I say yes at the same time we were Croatia was growing wine for mass production the quality didn’t disappear because families were still producing high quality wines and those Traditions were passed throughout the years wow yeah so thankful for those people who did that right to like keep keep the wine around and keep it especially even though we lost a lot of indigenous varieties 150 is still a lot right yeah right so I want to dive into the regions and the grapes but I want us to kind of go in the direction I’m going to follow your lead here of like do you want to start with like should we think of Croatia as these like indigenous grapes first or is it better to kind of explain by like region and where the grapes grow I think talking about the indigenous grapes is really important I think there’s two huge reasons why people should care about creation wine other than the fact that it’s fabulous and I’m so gonna apologize for my pronunciation to any ban people who ever listen to this my bash Lush very bad hey you gota you got to start somewhere you’re intro everybody to it so anybody listening to this podcast they can at least get a start to understanding the Caan varieties and everything so we’re very grateful so I can so I speak creation I understand it but my pronunciation is very bad for everything and the thing is that it’s very different from English because it’s all consonants next to each other so it’s like it’s bad anyways so there is a grp called San okay yes San and it comes from a small village outside of split maybe like 15 20 minutes away it was brought by the Romans and long long long time ago and then it went to pulia in Italy from pulia in the 1820s it went to Long Island New York from Long Island New York it made its way out west to California and that grap is zendel I’ve heard about this I’ve heard that Croatia is the true home I used to think it was a SP a place in Italy but it’s Croatia no a lot of people thought that it was from Primitivo so up in you know exactly from Italy but UCSD did a the viticulture Department did a huge study and yes it is from a small village outside of split in Costa and um it’s actually the parent there’s another grape in Croatia called blavat malali and it is the child of this scpe and basically all Zin vendel in the entire world comes from Croatia wow so is the is the Primitivo just a like is that that was the name that Italy gave it then exactly exactly so that’s like exactly so it went to pulia so from Croatia it went to Pia and so Primitivo is The Descendant from the creation original okay is that fun that is so cool isn’t it so fun I’m like so such a dor but like you can see behind me I’ve got like the wine grapes that huge massive thing and I’ve been reading that and like all the connections between the wines and especially because I swear like they’re constantly changing because like you said they’re starting to do these studies and the DNA things where they can actually dive into it where like some places claim they’re the place that something is from but then you actually do the DNA study and you’re like no no no no no it’s actually this which is yeah I I find that so so what was the name of the the Croatian grape again it’s San San it’s spelled like c r l j n a k Siana I see what you mean with all the constant my gosh so that’s the one reason why I think people should care about creation wine and the second one goes back to I’m sure you’ve heard of gorit from Napa Valley yes yes okay so gorit basically for like we talked about communism he had left Croatia because his family had produced wine and he wanted to be able to produce and sell wine freely so he she brought clip beans from Croatia went to California in Napa Valley and planted chardonay cuz C actually grows pretty good chardonay too uh planted chardonay planted a whole bunch of stuff and he went to the Paris tasting oh I don’t know the year so I’m not even going to pretend to say it like I should know that too it’s like 1970 1970 something I think maybe it’s 1972 we’ll say it’s 1972 the wine snobs can correct Us in the comments it’s fine we’re we we know what we’re talking about and he won against all French wines and it it it is because of that that put Chardon from Napa Valley on the map in the wine world and it was a and you said he brought Croatian grape Vines over and like that’s what he planted yes exactly exactly wow very cool yeah I know so that’s why I’m staying Croatia and it’s only four million people so like a country of four million people they got some cool things they do they do okay let’s dive into like I know we can’t go into all of them but maybe let’s call out so I’m thinking like either grapes one that you think Croatia should be known for like what are some that people should look out for when they’re visiting Croatia and then maybe even potentially I know you said it’s hard to get Croatia in the US or outside of Croatia but any of them that you’ve seen make their way out of Croatia that people could maybe be on the lookout for if they’re not able to Vis well so I’ll just say first off there’s 16 like protected areas in Croatia like or you can call them Appalachians or whatever you want and basically in order to be called that area you have to have like 85% of the grapes be from that specific area so fun facts is that Croatia 2third of its grapes are actually white wines and with gavina being one of the biggest like planting and selling of it but it’s actually not my favorite wine so I’m not going to talk about it I just think it’s interesting and good for people to know I mean that’s that’s the case in like it doesn’t Spain have like Ain or something like that it’s like there I’m trying to think of How It’s pronounced like it’s a top white wine planted but like nobody knows about it CU it’s not that exciting EXA one wine that I really like in a region is in pelia shots so if you look at the map of Croatia you have Northern Croatia Southern Croatia which is called Dalmatia and in delmia you have a region of Pelos shots and on Pelos shots there is a grave called plava smali and like I had said earlier plat Maly is actually the child I guess you can say of of um Zin fendel and the wine that comes from Pelos shot specifically a region called Ding is just amazing and I actually was trying to get you to taste it on this podcast but we all know what happened with that so hard to get winetime but since we can’t taste it I’m just going to tell you about how delicious it is and I’ll tell you a little bit about the region so what makes ding so special is is that it’s kind of like mosul in in Germany the a lot of them grow on a Hillside and so it gets direct sun all day long in fact like some of the has to everything has to be handpicked and it’s the same thing like mosul sometimes have to like put you on ropes like pick grapes seriously no I mean I’ve seen those pictures and I’ve heard from people they’re like I had to hold the post to make sure I did not fall down when I was just like doing the tour honestly honestly so it’s that’s one of the most coolest regions for me and the plab Molly that comes from there tends to be big and bold and velvety and dark fruits and it’s just so flipping good and this is just to clarify it’s a red wine right it is a red wine yes it’s a red wine so um if you can definitely try pla mly but specifically from ding because plat mly can grow anywhere and if you get it on other areas it’s going to be sometimes too tart for me it’s going to have too much like bright raspberries just like I don’t like it but if you get it from ding specifically it’s going to have way more darker fruit actually there is one producer that you can find in the United States and it’s called matusko and you can get it through Croatia premium wine online and they do have a bottle of plava M matusko ding so definitely try that because you can get it in the United States and it is delicious and then my other favorite grap to talk about comes from the island of Cula [Music] this podcast is sponsored by repour wine Savers listen I love wine but that doesn’t mean I want to drink a full bottle every night you see it’s always a risk opening a bottle knowing I’ll only have a glass or two but now I don’t worry about that at all because I have repour these little Contraptions will keep your open bottles of wine good for up to three months by removing oxygen from the bottle using fancy chemistry and they’re so easy to use I simply open a bottle of wine cork or screw cap just like normal and enjoy my glass or two then when I’m ready to call it a night I rip the foil off my reort wine saver and place it in the bottle in place of the cork or screw cap and then stick the bottle in the fridge simple 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ordinary wine club this is a community of people who are passionate about exploring new flavors learning about different wine Styles and having fun along the way and the best part about this club purchasing the wine is completely optional plus all events are recorded and you have access to the full library of recordings as a court crew member so you can always catch up if you can’t make it live oh and did I mention it’s virtual which means you get to do all of this from the comfort of your sofa in your p DJs no need to worry about driving in crappy traffic finding a designated driver or spending an arm and a leg on a taxi want to give it a try without the commitment you’re in luck right now I’m offering a free class pass to anybody who wants to try out the court crew virtual wine tasting club with this PA you’ll be able to join a court crew Event of your choosing no strings attached I don’t need your credit card I don’t need you to sign up for anything you’ll be my guest simply head to corkin fizz.com freeass pass to get your class pass and be one step closer to becoming a member of the best wine tasting Club around the court crew I can’t wait to see you there now let’s get back to the show Cula is my favorite place you guys I feel like um I I feel like I’ve heard a lot about this and this must just be like the conversations from the wala wala trip coming back yeah yes first of all everyone who’s listening Google Google Cula it’s beautiful and it’s home to two indigenous grapes one of them is called pip and pip tends to they’re both white onnes po tends to be a more Fuller bodied wine it has like some really nice like essence of apricots and green apple and it’s really delicious and the other one is called GK and GK is one of the most hallucinating grapes it’s also one of the hardest to grow grapes cuz it’s all female pollinators yeah female you know it’s all female so basically in order for the grape to grow it has to be planted with another Vine otherwise it won’t grow interesting are there other grapes that are like this I’ve never really heard of this I actually have no clue but I know G is like this yeah now we’re gon now I’m gonna have to look it up I’m so curious this is one of those things you learn something new about wine every day you can’t possibly know it all exactly so good comes from a small village called lumbarda and lumbarda is right on the w and uh it has Dandy soil which makes it really special to the area and uh yeah it’s you could basically only find it this one little village on this one little island one little part of the world and it’s very limited very hard to get but you can also come on a wine tour with me and I could tell you about it personally feel very lucky because um my partner Gabby who actually is a Sal from Bordeaux and she moved to the island and um we both love wine so we created this whole great wine tour business because of it but GK is amazing and um unfortunately you have to just come to ca in order to try it got it okay fair enough that’s a good enough reason to go to Croatia but it’s good I promise you I’ll give you a mod sounds great okay perfect let’s see I want to know I’m like I want to know it all but I also want to like try to narrow it down one of the questions that I had too I was curious so an indigenous grape right is the idea that it’s a grape that’s from that place so when we’re saying an indigenous grape of Croatia it means it it started in Croatia it wasn’t brought from anywhere else exactly have you noticed so like when we think of a lot of grapes like the indigenous Grapes of Italy they’ve been brought over to the US or like they’ve been brought over to Australia have you ever heard of people taking indigenous Grapes of Croatia and growing them anywhere else or is it one of those things were like they’re solely found in Croatia so recently I was in Russian River and I was at this Winery called sun and ironically the owner is Croatian and it’s funny because sunet it was so crazy basically I was on my way driving to another Winery and I saw this big sun Cuna means sun and I literally like screamed and made everyone stop in the car and I was like so turns out it he was I like ran out of the car it was this old little Croatian man and um he came from uh Croatia to the United States and he’s actually growing a grape called ton and ton comes from is typically and which is Northern Croatia and uh he told me that Teton grows really great in the Russian River Valley I had never heard of Teton growing anywhere other than in Croatia so yeah I don’t know there’s other than zinfindel I really haven’t heard of a lot of catian grapes making it outside of the country a lot of people think malvasia so they think oh because Northern Croatia too so in isia region grows a lot of melosia but it’s actually genetically DNA completely different than what grows in Italy oh interesting I know so even though it is called malasia the DNA is completely different so it’s going to make a totally different wine exactly I know oh so fun okay I want to know about you talk a lot about food and wine pairing I’m going off script a little bit because I thought of this I’m like oh why haven’t I as her this yet yeah what about like pairings when you’re caring Wine and Food in Croatia like what are some either like some favorite dishes that are just like oh I got to grab this wine it just goes with it perfectly or do you have more of a like is the philosophy like eh whatever we find to to drink with whatever we’re eating works well because that’s just we make the wine for the food well that’s the other thing you know I always think going back to like traveling in wine I think what you eat and what you drink is really reflective on the country right and especially on the coast of Croatia It’s All About Seafood you’re getting fresh caught fish and octopus and muscles and this just deliciousness if you like seafood it’s delicious so going back to example like GK so GK tends to be like when you’re drinking it you literally can taste like the sea water it sounds funky like it’s literally like saline saline there’s even like a little bit of bitterness to it but it pairs so perfectly with fish because of that kind of salty aspect of it laat malali for example is a heav your wine and it goes great with this dish in Croatia called poshti Sada and poshti Sada is low cooked meat for like two days Ironically in a red wine sauce PA with like homemade Noki and it’s like insane in Northern Croatia they’re really known for Truffles and actually so you have the white truffle and it grows only two places in the world Alba in Italy and in istria WoW I know fun facts no wonder they’re so expensive that’s making sense now I know well you know was crazy I was in istria a couple years ago and the lady literally was taking her Truffles and driving them to Venice and selling them to a restaurant in Venice dang yeah I know so I think the food and wine really pairs beautifully and yeah and it’s culture so like I go to my boyfriend’s parents house for lunch on a Tuesday and they have their own wine on the table they’re like Jennifer h class or two and I’m like it’s lunch it’s 12 o’ it’s a whole different a whole different philosophy when you’re in Europe it really is but it’s normal it’s like it’s not a big deal it’s like what two glasses two glasses is nothing it’s good for your heart and clearly they’re doing something right over there I think I think we should follow follow along there all right so we hit on we hit on some of the grapes and you did say that they grow a lot of indigenous grapes you do find Chardonnay are there any other kind of major grapes that people would know of that are grown in Croatia like that you would say do well yeah I I mean um cabet 7on does really well SRA but the thing with sarra it tends to be brighter it’s not like a rone varial or even um something that you’ll find maybe in Barosa Valley it’s a much brighter SRA you’re getting a lot more raspberries in there and like a little it’s a little bit more tart so if you like that style of wine and a SRA then definitely try it but yeah you can find Charon you can find SRA you can find Cabernet 7on but to be honest most when you go out to a restaurant you’re going to find a lot more it’s going to be predominantly indigenous grps no and I feel like that’s the way it should be I’m glad that they do that like that’s what I would want to taste right yeah exactly anything else we should know about Croatian wine I mean everything but anything that you can fit in the next like five minutes on the podcast anything that I didn’t ask you about and you were waiting for me to say Haley ask me this question I think what’s important to note so they have a classification system in Croatia where it’s like table wine quality wine and then high quality wine called verun venol and just because something says table wine doesn’t mean that it’s not good so the problem is is that basically when someone is making wine in order to qualify for vun I’m butchering this sorry Bulan people it get sent to like a panel of wine makers and they have to pay really high fees and it’s a really slow turnaround time so a lot of really big predominant wine makers don’t even submit it to them and they just call it table wine so I always tell people like if you’re buying your own wine at a restaurant or something like don’t pay attention to the fact that it says high quality wine like the table wine is probably if not better than the high quality wine that’s such a great thing to point out I totally I think that’s the same thing around here with like why you’ll notice that a lot of wineries don’t say organic or biodynamic on them and don’t have those kinds of things right the smaller wineries especially cuz like it costs a lot of money to get that certification and you know it’s already takes a lot of money to make wine let alone have to do that when it’s like no you just have to know the producer and know that they make good wine which was going to be my kind of like the the last question on this I do you know want to learn you know for folks that want to learn more you know if you have any resources you’d recommend obviously the book A year in the future we will recommend that but and then also like if we see Croatian wine on a menu if we you know I know that is that website the would you say it was Croatian wine premium wine yes you can buy it there are there wines that like how do we know when we’re looking at like the list of wines is there any way to know which ones are worth trying and which are like eh no that’s the Barefoot of Croatia avoid the problem this and this is me being very honest and it’s unfortunate the problem is is the wi that you’re going to get in the United States or mat bigger wineries people that can afford to pay the import cost people that can actually spare wine oh for example a lot of these wines like for on Cula they sell out just selling it to people in restaurants and stuff so I think that my philosophy on the subject is go to C premium wine for example and try some stuff to introduce yourself to the wines of Croatia and then you should call me and just come to Croatia you know what that that tracks I think that makes sense you’re like here start here but then here’s where you’re going to end CU I I just know you’re going to need to do this because let’s be honest Haley what’s better than being on a yacht drinking a glass of wine in the sunset yeah no I really can’t think of much I mean sounds and somebody else has done all the planning for you we always talk about this like one of the biggest cells of the wala wala trip you were like oh you’re planning it for me great I just get to come along for the ride and do all this and it’s like that’s what you’d be doing in Croatia cuz as much fun as it is to like plan the whole trip like you said I mean there were over a thousand islands like how do you know where to go and it’s like you can help them do that and that’s what that that’s what that is for so I love that okay we’re coming to the end and I just have a little mini speed round this doesn’t have to be Croatia based though I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them fall under Croatia for you but it’s just a little fun to kind of like I ask all my guests these questions so we’ll start with what is your favorite wine at the moment oh my gosh you know I’m really obsessed with that wine we had at Delmas yes yeah it’s hard not to be that SRA was just bananas like it was so freaking good or just to be honest just in general Walla Wala wine I was really Blown Away by the rone varietal and um like I said earlier I really like darker luscious wines and I mean from delas to ro like there’s just some beautiful things that are coming out of wall wal I have to say yeah oh that I love hearing that cuz I’m like I’m championing that region more people to know about Walla Walla Wine which like honestly we’re not a tiny little island in or island country in in Europe and we still have a hard time getting our wines out there to people I’m saying we as if I’m part of wala wala I am now I’m saying I am but like it’s hard to get wala wala wine outside of there I mean look I you know when I’m in the United States I’m living in New York and I cannot find I mean I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wine from wala wala I think we just need to like keep I mean the only thing I can think of is like I just keep asking at the small wine shops I just keep mentioning it I keep highlighting it and I’m like if more people can keep asking for it and the same thing with Croatian wine hopefully we can kind of create this you know create the economy for these wines to be brought in and be you know shared across the world I agree because to be honest if you can find some outstanding wines from France and Italy and everything like that it’s because there’s a demand for it you know there’s a demand for it you being an ambassador for you know all these amazing places like walaw Wala and me being an ambassador for Croatia hopefully one day we’ll go into a restaurant and it’ll be like oh my God there’s 10 walaw Wala wines and there’s five Croatian wines that would be so cool I know it’s gonna happen we’re gonna make it happen I know one day okay next question what is your favorite wine region that you’ve ever visited God that’s such a hard question all of them favorite wine region you know I will say one of the ones I guess that was most surprising to me um I lived in Australia for a while and there’s this island waiiki once again butchering names it was I typically tend to like wine regions that are also near the sea ironically o ironically as an island and they had some amazing wines and I think it was it was this like happy marriage um like their SRA their Rosé SRA is amazing like just what I had from there I really liked that I like the really kind of Underdog Ryan regions you know wala wala Croatia weiki Island and New Zealand don’t get me wrong Napa Valley is beautiful and amazing but I don’t like to pay $100 for a tasty yeah no there’s I feel like there’s also something special to like going to a region where you’re like I feel like I’m here before the crazy has happened or like before like it’s like I’m on the inside scoop I know of this before everybody else does or or it just feels yeah it’s more welcoming it’s Chiller like yeah I love Napa I found some really great wineries there but yeah it doesn’t reach the top of my favorite wine regions visited because of yeah it’s expensive and you expect a lot too I think yeah I know I know you get dressed up you put want makeup you’re like okay let’s have a day okay so now this one I don’t know if this is gonna be a harder or an easier question for you how about a wine region you’d like to visit I want to go to the Ron Valley I’ve never been and I’m obsessed with rone varidol and it’s been on my list for such a long time it’s just about getting out there and want to take a trip let’s go absolutely I’m going to uh going to France in September and I had the same problem of like I needed to limit I was I was trying to do the thing where I’m like okay you can’t go to a new place every day you’re going to get so tired and so I had to limit and we’re just doing lir Valley burgundy and Jura because we’re only there for like 10 days and we’re doing a couple days in Paris right and I’m like I’m already ready to go back again and I haven’t even gone the first time cuz I’m like there’s also the ran and there provance and then there’s alas in the north and I want to go there too yeah it’s so hard I like hearing that from you as somebody who actually does travel a lot that like it’s even hard for you to travel to these region well it is it seriously is it is really hard and it’s been on my like I have a friend of mine that lives in France and she’s like Jennifer just come and I’m like just coming it’s like time right it’s like it just it can’t happen that way but we’ll keep enjoying the wine from those regions and it can make us feel a little bit like we’re there or can come to wala wala also yes I like that okay how about uh favorite wine and food pairing and again it can just be of the moment it doesn’t have to be like the ultimate Wine and Food bearing so one of the traditions for my birthday since I turned 21 is prco and birthday cake for breakfast oh that’s so fun fancy one or anything but I know there’s something about like off dry bubbles in birthday cake which is the best thing in the world like that I have a feeling you’re going to start a tradition for quite a few people now yeah for breakfast specifically on your birthday okay all right I love it okay last question and I feel like you could probably take this a couple different ways so maybe start with just in the US and then I’m curious this actually brings me to a question we could ask about Croatia best bottle of wine under $15 for somebody who kind of wants to stay under a budget but they want like something reliable under $15 you know I was thinking about this earlier and I don’t know produ like wine production has gotten so expensive you know and you go to a lot of these small production Wineries and there’s so many costs today and I think personally I’ve had a hard time finding a bottle of wine under 15 can we do it under 30 I mean you’re not the first person to say that I think it’s like a good thing to call out too of like in order to get something that low cost you’re going to have to get from a large wine area you can’t support a local small producer because they can’t afford to drop their prices that low and that’s the truth when you just look at I mean the cost of everything day is so high I mean I went out to get a coffee in New York City and it was actually a tea and they freaking 30% tip a to go like chai latte and I was like excuse me like no the answer so I mean yeah you can get a chai latte for $15 I would say one I’m kind of obsessed with is in Russian River you have myar estate and they make an alberino there the story of them if you have a chance I would look them up basically it’s all female-owned the original person came from Spain and it it’s a cool story I’m not going to get into the whole story because that could be a whole different podcast basically her family was um wine producers in Spain she wanted to have her own Winery her Dad wouldn’t let her so she was like I’m going to move to California and make my own wine hell yeah and it was really cool and now her daughter is kind of running it and they make an alberino and I think it’s like maybe like $28 on their website it’s amazing definitely just like order a bottle for yourself just have um I would say that for the United States Europe is different you can find amazing bottles of wine for like 10 EUR right well that was going to be my question so just to kind of finish this all off and we’ll tie it back to Croatia like what would be like do you have like a go-to bottle when you’re in Croatia do you like do you visit the local wine shop for that do you just go to the grocery store kind of and what does like the budget look like when you’re you’re shopping for wine in Croatia yeah I mean like I said you can find an amazing bottle of wine for €1 I have a couple of them that I want to call out because I’m obsessed with all of them and they’re just amazing humans so I would say for pip which is the white wine that grows on Cula I really love there’s a new wine producer called tasat and they had that story where they were making wine for themselves as a family and then were doing such a good job that they transitioned to making it to sell and that is you know you can get that under $15 there’s a wine region in Dalmatia called vgo V once again I’m so bad at pronouncing all this I’m so sorry I’ll have you write a couple of them down we’ll make sure to put them in the show notes so people know what to look for because we won’t know how to say it or spell it either there’s a really small family producer called Crystal um Modis Modis Crystal M and Family Winery and they make a grape called T and it’s a red grape ALS Al grown predominantly in bosia fabulous they’re fantastic and Peto Winery in cell Island for bullship too and all of these wines and that’s the thing is all of these wines are amazing wines and you’re not spending like in the United States $60 for a bottle or something like that right you just got to spend to get there and then and then once you’re there you’re you’re good right all right well one more time before we go tell us about your the food and wine tour the dates the the details all of that and I’ll make sure to put a link in the show notes so people can go check it out yes so it’s August 24th to 31st we go from duic to splits and we Island hop you can jump right off the boat into the sea it’s really amazing it’s 18 cabins 36 people mats and um I’m more than halfway sold out so if you want to come definitely you know book ASAP and um I have a special promotion for you guys and Haley’s going to promote tell you a little bit more now but special promotion for all you guys listening um basically if you are a fan of delicious food and even if you don’t like seafood it’s all customized it’s a customized food and wine cruise island hopping visit family-owned Farms the spoke small production Wineries and tanning on the Adriatic Sea on a yacht I mean what gets better sounds amazing I know 2025 you’re coming yes I love it perfect but okay how can how should people uh get that special promotion or how should they reach out so that they can take advantage of it honestly they can just send us an email go to our website you know anchor caa.com our or Instagram is the anchor Croatia and um just tell them that you listen to the wonderful Haley on her podcast and I will make sure that you get that special promotion and a complimentary bottle of wine so oh wonderful starting off starting off strong you just end up in cro you get bottle of wine exactly that sounds lovely okay Jen I’m so excited for all the things to come and everything I’m so glad we got to connect thank God for Instagram for helping us find each other isn’t that wild know had such a great conversation and can’t wait to see what else you end up doing and what you teach me about Croatian wine I’m excited well it was so good to see you Haley and thank you for everything yes thanks cheers so uh who’s ready to go to Croatia because it has definitely made it on my bucket list and on my travel list for sure now I want to make sure you caught the special bonuses that Jen is offering you so her food and wine cruise is normally around € 3,600 per person this is the food and wine cruise that is going from August 24st to the 31st in 2024 goes from deenik to split I’m probably not saying that as well as Jen but you know what I’m talking about you’re going to Island hop eat local food learn about the indigenous grapes on the Island a lot of them that she mentioned during this podcast you will get a chance to taste and taste in Croatia so you know it’s going to be the best now like I mentioned this cruise is typically $3,600 per person for podcast listeners until the cabins are sold out you can get this for just € 2580 which don’t worry I did the math for you for those of us that are in the US and in Canada that is $2800 per person that is a major discount and that is for a whole food and wine cruise in Croatia so reach out to her you can find her on her website anchor caa.com or on Instagram the Anor Croatia these will all be linked in the show notes reach out to her and just mention this podcast and you will get that discount now if you have plans to visit Croatia already or it’s ped the dates for her food and wine cruise she is also offering 20% off a customized sailing trip or 20% off wine tours in Croatia if you want to go visit but you missed out on the food and wine cruise so again just reach out to her and mention this podcast to get that special discount now if you love this episode as much as I did I’d so appreciate if you could take a quick second rate it leave a review in whatever podcast app that you’re using at the moment and of course share it with other wine lovers in your life especially those that are interested in new and different wines I bet they would love to learn about Croatian wine in next week’s episode I will be sharing a little wine travel guide for visiting Santa Barbara in California this is definitely one of my favorite wine places in the US I mean wallala Wala is probably at the top but Santa Barbara is a closed second it’s so beautiful and they are wonderful places I’m going to share with you some of the wineries that I visited some tips for whether you should get a rental car whether you should hire a car service and where you should stay I’ve got lots of information here and I’m really excited to share with you thanks again for listening and as a thank you I’d like to share my free Shopping Guide 15 wines under $15 simply head to my website corand fizz.com scroll down to the bottom and join my mailing list cheers [Music]