Croatia is a country with a strong wine culture and people that have always appreciated its true quality. Throughout the generations wine has always represented much more than the necessity, a mere beverage or a nutriment.
The families were rarely selling their wines, most of it was kept for their own consumption, for friends and celebrations, which is best shown in the verse from the old song of Northern Croatia « Not a single Zagorec (person from the region) has sold his wine, as all was drunk by his friends». Statistical information are maybe not as interesting as the aforementioned verse but prove the belief. Almost half of the wineyards in Croatia are not registered for business and trade but can only keep wine for personal consumption.
The other half, destined for the market is rather uknown outside Croatia. The main reason being that Croatia last several decades didnt have a significant export. After the fall of Jugoslavia the new countries were created. What was once Jugoslavian wine ceised to exist and the wines from other countries became an imported product. The trade with wine among the newly founded countries decreased and each country has focused on its own wine production and consumption. In Croatia, furthermore the local consumption was increasing and the production, which has been badly hurt during the war in the 90-ties, has decreased, so there was only just enough wine for the local market. Only in the last decade, after most wineyards have been revived, Croatia started producing enough wine for exports.
Like the rest of Central Europe, grape cultivation in Croatia pre-dated the Romans by several hundred years, and is at least 2500 years old. The oldest traces of the vine planting and wine production come from Vis, the island on the south of Croatia. It is a small coin dated 5th century BC. One side featured a grape and the other an amphora for keeping wine. Similar archeological and written documentation can be found in many places on the coast, from Istria to Dalmatia.
In the continental part of Croatia winemaking came several centuries later and was spread by Illyrians and Thracians, as well as Romans. One of the most famous promoter of the wine culture was Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus, who has planted huge vineyard areas from the Rhine valley in Germany to the Danube area in Croatia. Forcing his army to plant and maintain these large territories, when not fighting against rebels, turned his army against him. After all, legionaries understood themselves being there to fight, not to plant vines. He paid for his passion with his head.
Continuous wine tradition was interuppted only during the time of the Ottoman empire in the 16th century. Phylloxera, the disease, which destroyed most of the vineyards in the late 19th century in Europe also had a strong influence on the final selection of grape varietals in Croatia, especially its continetal part. Lots of indogenous varietals became extinct and were replaced mainly by german and austrian grapes, brought by the new rulers, the Habsburgs.
French varietals came only later, in the 20th century. Istria and Dalmatia were also hit by phylloxera, but because of their distinctive climate and soil, indogenous varietals managed to persist and are still dominating.
