Agaday, Albana and Ancellotta resemble the names of characters from the stories of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, the brilliant author of the Lord of the Rings saga. Those are the names of grape varieties from the Regulations on the National List of Recognized Cultivars that may be planted in Croatia and from which wine may be made and, of course, sold. Balbut, balina, barjanka and bilan are some other varieties that few serious winegrowers can say they know.
The Turk is not only man from Turkey
Biloliska, written as Bilo Liska, could also mean the albino version of the coot, a black wading bird with exceptionally tasty meat. Synonyms are Biljuš or Biljuška, Karagača or Karaguša, Šparanjuša and turčin. The first four names are untranslatable, and the fifth is Turčin, what means the Turk.
Further alphabetically in that Regulations are the Cortese and Crnka varieties, recommended for cultivation in the subregion of Central and South Dalmatia. The first one somewhat resembles the name of a unique adventurer from the genius comic of the Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt called Corto Maltese. It seems to point to the Maltese origin.
A lady with a black hair
Crnka could mean lady with black hair or dark skin. When reading the Rulebook, one quickly stumbles upon the Dobrogoština. It can be translated as good hospitality or good for guests.
Dobrogoština is one of the names of Trbljan, a variety from the Dalmatian coast and islands. Good for guests, means the name of variety also known as kuč. It bears fruit regularly and abundantly, but only by reducing the yield one can produce solid wines that farmers were saving for not-so-dear visitors.
Good guest in blends
This Pljuskavac, as it is also called, is itself a good guest in blends with better quality varieties which give less juice: on Hvar with Bogdanuša, and on Vis with Vugava. Pljusak, from the name Pljuskavac means downpour or rain shower. So, Španjol, which is another name, increases the volume of the wine. And Španjol could mean from Spain.
Trbljan should not be confused with the Trebbiano Toscano or Ugni Blanc variety, which is also very productive, and probably came to us from Italy at the beginning of the 20th century. In the area around Šibenik, sparkling wines were also made from it. All of the varieties mentioned so far are among the 259 that can be used to make wine in Croatia. That is how many varieties are allowed in Croatia, and we are fifth in the EU in terms of this.
Italy has 748 varieties
According to data from 2020, Italy has by far the most allowed varieties, as many as 748. It is followed by Portugal with 343, Hungary (331) and France (310). Behind Croatia, with 224 allowed varieties, is Spain.
In terms of the number of varieties, Croatia is richer than Germany (155) and Austria (55). Slovenia only have 61, less than the Netherlands (100), couintry that only a few winedrinkers would associate with wine. Many people, even from the hospitality industry, still laugh at English wines, and the United Kingdom is one of the most beautiful wine stories at the moment.
English wine? Of course!
There are 44 permitted varieties in UK, and they make excellent sparkling wines using the classic champagne method and from classic champagne varieties, as well as very good still Pinot Noirs. The English, most of the wine production is in that part of the Kingdom, do not have many wineries. They number in the dozens.
In Croatia 23,545 people, 537 crafts and 614 companies grew vines on 19,409 hectares of vineyards divided into 75,254 plots, according to data from the Viticultural Cadastre as of December 31, 2018. The most common variety was Graševina. On 4,212.35 hectares, 20,398,955 vines were planted last year. Fewer than in 2018, when there were 21,262,580.
There were many more vines
Today, Istrian Malvasia follows with 1,509.18 hectares and 6,537,353 vines, and Plavac Mali with 1,126.49 hectares and 9,400,953 million vines. Sad fact is that eight years ago there were about thirty percent more vines in Croatia.
Among the 10 most widespread varieties in Croatia also are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Plavina, Chardonnay, Rhine Riesling, Frankovka and Pošip. The indigenous Babić has fallen from 11th to 14th place since 2018. We all associate it with Primošten, some with the wider area of Šibenik, and few people know that it was also called Pažanin what means from Island of Pag in the Lika-Senj County.
The first Lika wine
It is more likely to grow in the part of Pag around Novalja, which is in that county, than around Gospić in the heart of Lika. Although, there are vines in Lika too. Not far from Korenica, Kutjevo winemaker Tomo Antunović planted several varieties, and Solaris proved to be the best. Tomo also made the first Lika wine.
Babić or Pažanin is grown in other coastal counties, except Istria, but also in the City of Zagreb, at the Jazbina Viticulture and Wine Experiment Station of the Faculty of Agriculture. There is also a National Collection of Autochthonous Grape Varieties that are being protected from extinction.
The red variety is called yellow sling
There are only Croatian varieties in the collection. I don't know if there is also Slankamenka bijela (Salty Rock White), which is also called Mađaruša. It is a variety that grows in old plantations in eastern Croatian vineyards and in Bjelovar-Bilogora County. In Brod-Posavina County, there is also Slankamenka crvena (Salty Rock Red), which is also Called Plovdina crvena, Crvenka, Bukovar and Žuta praćka (yellow sling).
Serbs believe that both Slankamenkas are theirs, and Bulgarians would gladly adopt the red one, according the name quite similar as their town of Plovdiv. The vine does not recognize current borders, as shown by the case of Graševina. Jancis Robinson presented it with a Croatian name in her book Wine Grapes and wrote that it probably originated in the area of Pannonia.
It is Austro-Hungarian, so it is Croatian
If that is true, Serbs in Vojvodina, Hungarians, and even Slovenians or Austrians can call it autochthonous. Until 100 or so years ago, we were in the same country and it was ours, it belonged to all of us. Today, at least officially, it is no longer ours. It is not included in the Green Book of Croatian Indigenous Varieties.
I have to mention funny, some would say dirty names of vines or wines. In Zagorje, north from Zagreb, people call wine Dobrostojček, Nadigač and Dabistal and all three words could mean The Hard One. They honestly warned that this is true only if you are a moderate drinker. They also have Erotic wine Jebežljivec (The one who likes to f..k), which you can by even in the bottle.
A glass is a cure, two make it move
Today, our most famous wine with a sexual connotation is made by the Kutjevo family winery Sontacchi. One glass is for the cure, two make it move, they warn about the effects of their wine Kitokret, meaning one that move and made from the Cabernet Franc variety.