Croatian Wines

I mentioned in my first post that I spent two weeks of winter break in Croatia. The trip included two Croatian wineries - one on Peljesac (same peninsula as the Grgich winery, which was established decades after Grgich Hills Estate) and one on the Istrian peninsula - in addition to quite a few bottles of wine over dinner.

Because tourism is at its lowest in January, the vintners and sommeliers had time to give us a pretty in-depth account of the country's winemaking history. Although the country's winemaking tradition extends back to Roman rule, war and instability in more recent years has limited the ability (or desire) for Croatian wineries to scale and commercialize their operations (interestingly, almost half of Croatian vineyards don't have licenses to sell wine, meaning most of their production is for personal use only).

With tourism on the rise, I wonder if this might change, as increased global exposure fosters global demand for Croatian wines. I, for one, was upset to find that trusty Bevmo carries exactly zero Croatian wines.

Yet even with increased global demand, it's possible that US imports will remain low on account of the tiered excise taxes that Pete Mondavi Jr. mentioned last week. Croatian wines are, by and large, higher in alcohol content than US wines (ranging from 14.5% to 16%), meaning they are subject to a tax of $.31 / bottle (as opposed to $.21 / bottle for wines with 14% alcohol or less).