Additional information
Producer | Dubrovački Podrumi |
---|---|
Region | Dalmatia |
Serving temperature | 16-18°C |
Varietal | Tribidrag / Crljenak / Zinfandel |
Vintage | 2016 |
Vineyards on the slopes above Cavtat, just south of Dubrovnik, give grapes for this wine, which are 100% Crljenak Kastelanski. The winery was a high-tech, modern establishment when founded in 1963. After being devastated and burnt in the Homeland War in the 1990s, the company found the strength to revitalize and revive the destroyed vineyards. In 2002, state of the art technology for stabilization, filtering and bottling was implemented.
Crljenak Kastelanski, also known as Tribidrag and Primitivo, is shown through DNA testing to be “The Original Zinfandel”. These vines, which originated in Croatia, were brought across the Adriatic Sea to Italy by the Romans and renamed Primitivo, well before landing in New York and California and again being renamed Zinfandel. Crljenak was nearly extinct in Croatia when UC Davis Professor Carole Meredith and her Croatian colleagues found it in a vineyard near Split while researching the origins of Zinfandel. From the mere nine vines that were found in 2002, thanks to the project to revitalize this variety, there are now over 350,000 vines, and their numbers seem to grow exponentially. Dalmatia has embraced its long-lost child.
Fresh acids and typical aromas of red fruits, prunes and raisins make this wine very drinkable, very fresh and very pleasant on hot summer days. This wine is delicate and much more similar to Primitivo than most California Zinfandel, less fruit-forward, and due to an earlier harvest, lower in alcohol.
Serving temperature: 61-64°F. Pair with roasted lamb, stewed lentils, and smoked bacon.
Crljenak Kastelanski (sirl-yen-ak cash-tell-ahn-skee)
Producer | Dubrovački Podrumi |
---|---|
Region | Dalmatia |
Serving temperature | 16-18°C |
Varietal | Tribidrag / Crljenak / Zinfandel |
Vintage | 2016 |
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