Croatia continues to haunt me. After my two recent trips in November and April, I positively think Croatia is Europe’s fastest-improving wine country. The progress is just staggering, and although it is objectively a small wine nation, Croatia has fantastic diversity – of terroirs, grape varieties and styles.
I’m just tasting a wine that’s confirming this. Duboković is a winery on the scenic isle of Hvar. Other than beaches Hvar is mostly renowned for its powerful red wines made of the Plavac Mali grape, but it makes a lot of white wines too. This Moj Otok 2008 apparently is the producer’s entry-level effort, and I purchased it during my recent stay in Poreč for 10€. I’m told it’s made of the Maraština, Bogdanuša, Parč and Kuć grapes: as obscure as they may sound, at least the former three are pretty widespread on Croatia’s Adriatic coast.
A truly original wine!
This wine is really puzzling. It’s three years old, but not declining at all. You may assume it’s another evanescent Mediterranean flavourless white by seeing 11.8% alc. on the label, but the contrary is true: there’s plenty of substance and intensity here. But most of all, the aromatic profile is unique: there’s not a bit of fruit. Instead, this wine is full of spicy, savoury, brothy, mineral notes. It tastes like a combo of matchstick-reductive Loire Chenin Blanc, oxidised vin jaune from the Jura, and Indian curry.
Tasting it with friends (no wine buffs) generated all sorts of theories. That this was a maceration-type, ‘orange’ wine aged on the skins. That it was aged in oak (I doubt it), hence the toasty, savoury aromas. That it was made from a broth cube, not grapes. But the wine evolved happily with airing in the glass, and some ripe Cox apple fruitiness even made its appearance, as well as some chalky minerality and good acids.
Ivo Duboković in his Hvar winery cellar. © National.hr.
It’s by no means a wine for everyone. In fact it couldn’t be more distant from the standard easy-drinking superfruity New World Chardonnay or Sauvignon that makes up a large proportion of global wine sales. For the explorative wine drinker, on the other hand, it’s a fascinating bottle with a real sense of place. And it’s great with food too: its brothy savouriness and spiciness made it a brilliant match with an aged Comté cheese yesterday, and chanterelle pasta today.
Disclosure
Source of wine: my own purchase.
Thanks for this update from Duboković. He’s one of our favorites on Hvar as well.
You’re right in that Croatian wine cellars are improving in quality overall at a rapid rate. There has been a large infusion of EU loans that have helped out modernization a great deal. Unfortunately, the prices have gone up significantly as well and not at a warranted level. Still, there are many good values to be had and I’ll always have a few bottles in my cellar.
You’re right about prices. As distinctive as this Moj Otok is, 6-7EUR would be a fairer price. But Croatia producing so little wine and drinking it all by itself, domestic demand drives prices up and I don’t think this will change anytime soon. So it’s important to stick to the good producers.
Actually, the domestic demand has plummeted due to a large presence of cheap wines from Argentina and other areas. That’s why there has been a big international sales push as these winemakers are having a very hard time selling it back home. At the same time, they don’t want to lower their prices, so they’ve put themselves in a rather bad spot at the moment. Hopefully things will level out someone soon.
Dubokovic… Well, let’s just say level-headed pricing is not really what he’s about
@Miquel & Buonsangue, pricing is a notoriously controversial issue but as is often told, the market decides the price… I know prices in Croatia are not low but I think they often are fair for the quality. Certainly the good wines I’ve been tasting in Istria and Dalmatia and Pleśivica are reasonably priced compared to e.g. the red wines of Hungary, Slovenia or Italy.
@Wojciech: Regrettably, I am for the most part pretty clueless about the wine scene in Hungary, while I definitely agree that, by and large, Slovene winemakers certainly display remarkable self-confidence in their pricing policies
. I am, however, far less sure of the appropriateness of seeing Italy mentioned in this context. My dig at Dubokovic’s pricing alludes to a specific wine he makes called “Medvid”: a supposedly top-notch, scarily overripe and overextracted plavac mali, the best thing since sliced bread and all that, which debuted some six or so years ago at a ridiculous 60 EUR (or thereabouts) retail… Dubokovic actually teaches marketing for a living (at university level): he is a marketing guy, first and foremost, and a lot of his involvement in wine revolves around marketing ideas and gimmicks. Of course, that in itself does not mean the wines are bad 
. Some are, as a matter of fact, quite interesting and successful (as a rule, those which he makes in a more reasonable pricing bracket – guarda caso 
). Others are ridiculously overpriced and, in my opinion, not particularly successful – to say the least. Simply put: there is better stuff being made elsewhere on Hvar and in Croatia’s South that you can actually buy without breaking the bank. As far as the market deciding the price, I hope I am wrong, but I imagine Dubokovic must be experiencing at least the occasional spot of bother with “product placement” already.
(Just a spot of well-meaning pedantry, if I may: Marashtina (considered in some places to be synonymous with Rukatac) and Kuch (Trbljan) are in fact quite widespread along Croatia’s coast and islands (in relative terms, of course), while Bogdan(j)usha (for the most part) and P(a)rch (entirely, as I understand) are peculiar to Hvar.)
Buonsangue, thanks for precising the grape varieties info. There are so many in Dalmatia that it’s really confusing, especially as the same grapes function under different names.
Re: prices, I’m aware of Medvid, and there are a few other super-expensive Plavacs, but on the whole I see more exaggeration in northernj Italy or Tuscany. Think how many 40 EUR Merlots or Chardonnay there are in Friuli and Alto Adige, and the prices of amarone at the moment. Italy still has some good value wines especially in the south but one the whole it has become a pricy place, IMHO. Thanks for your comments!
You’re more than welcome – the pleasure is all mine and I am genuinely privileged to be here.
). Amarone is a hot potato, obviously, and one of the wines that have acquired a veneer of perceived “luxury”, probably due to too much time spent in a certain type of spotlight 
, but who needs Romano del Forno, or even Allegrini, if you can still buy great Amarone from other less touted, traditional-to-the-core producers for just under or about 20 EUR? (That is, if you have any use at all for Amarone of any denomination – myself, I tend to be more of a Valpo Superiore/Ripasso person). Etc. One of Italy’s chief comparative strengths is that for every Super-Tuscan, there’s a Valcalepio waiting in the wings 
. Anyway, that’s my take. And, true enough, life is much simpler if, like me, Messorio is just not your thing at all,quite irrespective of the price tag… Thanks again for the super write-up and for digging up interesting wines from “unlikely places”!
We seem not to see eye-to-eye on Italy. Of course, I am perfectly aware of the extensive “silly pricing”, “luxury” segments across the great boot’s provinces and all that. Yet, I am firmly convinced that no wine country beats Italy in terms of QPR (and truly delectable diversity). I have to say I am not aware of too many 40-EUR Merlots and Chardonnays from Alto Adige, specifically: I think Alto Adige as a region is, on the whole, a source of great quality, great character and great value, with no more than a relatively small fraction of the best wines falling in the >30EUR range. Friuli, of course, is slightly different: generally, it tends to be a little “Slovene” in term of pricing (were it not for the fact that it’s actually the other way around
Interesting name. “Med” means “honey” in Croatian and this might actually be his take on Prošek and thus meant to be a dessert wine, although I’ve haven’t commonly heard of it being made from Plavac Mali.
Whatever the case, I’ll have to follow up more with it as I didn’t have a change to taste it on my last trip around Croatia.
And as far as the price debate goes, these wines are out of whack. You can get a “drinkable” bottle in Spain for 1€, a good bottle for 5€ and a great bottle for 10€. Anything that starts getting away from that is getting out of control.
I think it’s a dry Plavac but Buonsangue might help us out here.
Re: prices, I think you’re being a bit hard. I see nothing wrong in paying a really good wine 15 or 20€, though I’d agree 50€ is upsetting. But that’s much a question of personal sensitivity.
“Medvid” (Dalmatian variant, “medvjed” in standard Croatian) is the Croatian word for “bear” (animal). If you break this composite noun down into components, you get “med” (honey) and “vjed” (an Indo-European root connoting “seeing”, “knowledge” etc.). Hence, “medvjed” = he who “knows honey”, knows where to find honey etc.
. It is dry in the same way as many other very alcoholic, (over)extracted red wines that can sometimes veer off into somewhat Port-like territory. (While I am not familiar with the specific figures, if pushed to speculate, I would in fact guess the RS to at least occasionally be very near or even slightly over the demarcation line between dry and off-dry under the local standards: the sort of situation you come across quite often in Dingach, to name one example).
The grapes for this wine are picked at a location known as Medvid Bod, hence the wine’s name. (Although, in a play upon the word’s meaning, Dubokovic decided to name his no. 2 Plavac Mali “Medvidica”, just to make sure the “Medvid” didn’t stay single for the rest of his life, I suppose. Not sure if he still makes the latter wine, though).
It is most definitely not a dessert wine and has nothing whatsoever to do with Proshek (by the way, red Proshek is very commonly made from Plavac Mali).
How dry is it exactly? Well, that might depend on the vintage and also on who you ask
Hope that helps
hi! few facts about names: microlocation on the island of Hvar, where our vineyard is located (grapes from that specific one is used to make Medvid and Medvjedica), is called “Medvid bod” because under it is cave in which lived the Mediterranean monk seal (in croatian “sredozemna medvjedica”, a protected species and part of the local heritage). Local name for it was Medvid, so premium wine is called after it – best quality grapes from one of the top microlocations in Dalmatia, aged in french barrique.
Medvjedica is the wine from same grapes, same vineyard, but it didn’t age in barrique barrels, and it is also named after monk seal…pure plavac mali.
about prices – our principle explains them: “in the bottle is what the vineyard gave us during that year.” Our wines, different brands and different harvests are sold at different prices from 15eur-150eur in retail.
Now we have in our cellar only five brands of red wine – Medvid, Medvjedica, before 6009 years, 2718 hours of sunshine in a bottle and Laganini. We produce also rose N11 (from plavac mali), white wines – moj Otok (selection), moja B (pure bogdanjusa), moja M (pure marastina), 2 desert wines – don Petar (prošek from plavac mali) and Prvi poljubac/first kiss (prošek from white selection)
…annually up to 2000 (1000-4000, depends) bottles per brand, and about 30,000 bottles of wine in total per year.
we are open to online discussion or you can e-mail us at info.dubokovic@gmail.com
greetings from Dubokovic cellar!
Thank you for your comment. And the fantastic visit at your cellar last Sunday! Another Duboković write-up coming soon.