Wines and labels

Kosovo wine is returning to the UK market. According to the website of the producer, StoneCastle, its wines measure up to the best of France or Italy. Well, no they don’t. I tried the StoneCastle Merlot recently, and it was actually OK – you can drink it (with the caveat that during extended periods in this neighbourhood my palate is highly unreliable). It tasted like Merlot anyway, which is a good sign.

I tried another Merlot the same evening, from a winery owned by one of Kosovo's most prominent luminaries. According to the label, it was a 1993. My host told me he didn’t believe it. He had never seen any vintage other than 1993. Well, it certainly didn’t taste like a fifteen-year old wine. Isn’t that a great idea? What if Burgundian producers were to label all their wines for the next fifteen years as Grand Cru from 2005?

But the proliferation of private producers in the Balkans is a good thing. Slovenia is well ahead of the pack. I prefer the wines of the Goriška brda region (Collio in Italian, in this border-straddling territory). I am a long-standing fan of the Sivi pinot (Pinot Griggio) from Ščurek, and the wines of Movia are worth drinking. The wines of Croatia are as diverse as that country’s geography and climate. So far, I’ve not been convinced by the heavy reds of Dalmatia which are so admired in some quarters. They just seem very big, usually flabby, often oxidised, and uninteresting. The wines of Istria are often more restrained and refined, like those of Matošević.

But I think Montenegro is especially interesting. I’m biased – I like Montenegro. The hills between Bar and Virpazar seem particularly promising. That Montenegro has an indigenous grape variety, the Vranac, adds to the interest (it’s grown elsewhere in the Balkans, in Macedonia, Bosnia and Kosovo, but Montenegro is its real home). Several small private producers have been springing up, and some of them are really pretty good. The prices some of them go for in Podgorica shops – up to 50 Euros for a bottle last time I was there – are also an indication of how highly they are prized. It’s really quite exciting.