Wine tasting to celebrate Martinje at the Croatian Embassy, Washington DC

Washington, DC, November 14, 2019 — The Embassy of the Republic of Croatia, hosted a wine tasting to celebrate St. Martin Day, Martinje. Saint Martin is a protector of wine and Martinje is celebrated in many towns in Croatia – this marks the cheerful celebration when the must traditionally becomes the wine.

Lara Romano, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of the Republic of Croatia to the United States of America, welcomed guests including the diplomatic community, the Washington Croatian community, and a few wine writers.  Ms. Romano also started the evening by explaining the Martinje tradition, and introduced the speaker Mirena Bagur, the President of the Boston Croatian community – New England Friends of Croatia – as well as the co-founder of the Croatian Premium Wine imports, Inc.

VINA CROATIA Vina Mosaica

Ms. Bagur introduced The Croatian Wine Story, developed by the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, Hrvatska Gospodarska Komora,  explaining the various wine regions. She then gave an overview of many indigenous varietals in Croatia and related the story behind the Vina Dalmatia – World Heritage Wines strategy for the Dalmatian wines, focusing on the origins of indigenous wines such as Pošip, Plavac Mali, and Tribidrag (Zinfandel).   The full story is available on their website.

The wine tasting of Dalmatian wines was conducted during the presentation – the guest enjoyed the wines from the Komarna Appellation in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, which have recently started being imported to the US.

“Since more than one million Americans have just traveled to Croatia, where they enjoyed not only the culture and sights, but also the premium wines, we appreciate the Embassy’s interest in conducting wine tastings for the Washington diplomatic and business communities, as well as the local Croatian community leaders,” said Winfried Burke, the CEO and co-founder, of Croatian Premium Wine Imports, who explained the story behind each of the wineries and their wines.  “We are excited to conduct the first in a series of wine tastings, which in the future will present the wines from other Croatian wine regions.”

Croatian Premium Wine Imports, Inc., is an importer, and in Massachusetts also a distributor, of fine Croatian wines.  For information on all wines in stock, from Pošip to Zinfandel and Plavac Mali, and availability in other areas of US, visit:  www.croatianpremiumwine.com, and sign up for updates.  If you are interested in bringing these boutique Croatian wines to your state, contact [email protected].

Public-private Collaboration with the Croatian Leaders

Of note is that this private-public collaboration started last September, when the team comprised of the Komarna 7 Association of winemakers, Mr. Mihovil Stimac, the American wine judge and writer, Mr. Luiz Alberto, and Ms. Mirena Bagur met last September with the President of the Dubrovnik-Neretva Region, Mr. Nikola Dobroslavić – to talk about ways to collaborate to promote the wines from the region to the US — particularly given the recent introduction of the non-stop American Airlines’ flight from Philadelphia to Dubrovnik. Based on the introduction by Mr. Dobroslavic, the Komarna/US team had a productive discussion with the leaders at the Dubrovnik branch of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Terezina Orlic and Ms. Nikolina Trojic, as well as the director of Tourist Board of Dubrovnik, Ms. Romana Vlašić.

The team then had a very constructive meeting in Zagreb with the Croatian Chamber of Commerce to define the best way to create a strategy for exporting premium Croatian wines to the US.