September the 30th, 2022 - The well known Istrian Kabola winery is no stranger to international recognition and awards, and two more prestigious international awards will only push this Istrian winery even further into the limelight.

As Morski writes, two international awards - Luxury Awards in the category of Best Organic Wine Production Company 2022 and Prestige Awards in the category of Vineyard of the Year - have arrived at the doors of the Istrian Kabola winery. According to many people, this is by far the most beautiful Istrian estate of all.

Both awards come from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and are annual awards given by respected British publications. The best ones are decided by readers online, as well as by an expert jury.

Connoisseurs of the wine scene know that both of these awards have definitely ended up in the right hands, because the Istrian Kabola winery was the first of all on the Istrian peninsula to venture into organic production, which is why all its labels have had the BIO certificate since back in 2009, and it is also the first winery in all of the Republic of Croatia to have started with the production of wine aged in amphorae.

The awards given to the owners of the winery, the Markezic family, who are still very busy working in the vineyards because this year's harvest is still in progress.

"We started harvesting around August the 25th this year, two or three weeks earlier than in previous years due to the extremely hot and sunny summer. Early Chardonnay and Pinot Gris varieties were harvested, and we're using them to produce our RE Kabola sparkling wine. We've just finished harvesting the Malvasia, which accounts for 70 percent of the total production of our grapes and wine,'' explained famous Istrian winemaker Marino Markezic, announcing yet another excellent wine year.

The vineyards on the estate of the Istrian Kabola winery withstood this year's horrendous drought very well thanks to the soil in the microlocation of Momjanstina, which is rich in marl that retains moisture more easily.

It's worth noting that wine and the production of it has been present within this family and has been a tradition for more than 130 years now, and the Markezic family live in harmony with nature. Their cellars have always been the Istrian avant-garde, their wines are widely appreciated, recommended by the most famous sommeliers and offered by prestigious restaurants in many locations. Their winery in Kanedol is a must-see destination for tourists from all over the world, and the film industry also loves it, given the fact that just a few years ago, scenes for a Hollywood blockbuster were filmed on the property.

"Awards always make us happy, but the best reward is the recommendation of our clients and guests who return to us year after year and truly enjoy our wines," concluded Markezic.

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June the 8th, 2021 - Sasa Bernobic of the Istrian OH Wines winery does things a bit differently than one might expect, and he has put the ever-famed German production skills he was educated in into proper practice.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes, although the wine world is often associated with terms such as family business and tradition, OH Wines winery has a completely different story, from the approach, the method of production, to the label and the name itself.

This is a winery in the municipality of Vizinada, in an ideal position between Mediterranean and continental Istria, and Sasa Bernobic produces wines according to the rules of the "German school".

“OH Wines was created back in 2015 on the modern idea of ​​a market accompanied by a different way of producing wine and olive oil, but also a different way of producting the very design itself. I wanted to stand out from a large group of markets by gathering practical and professional experiences from other parts of Europe and from across the rest of the world. So, I adapted my wine production to the German production model, my olive oil to that used by the Italians and the Spaniards, and the design to my own model where I simply reversed the mental circuit in people and did something unusual in design for the world of wine,'' Ssas Bernobic explained.

Bernobic claims that the "German school" of white wine production is the strongest in the world and has no competition, and is based on the accuracy of the data and extremely high "purity" in numbers when we talk about microbiology.

Clean numbers

"It was this precision and accuracy that led me to create a new style of wine that is different from the competition, and with that same new style of wine I stimulated the imaginations of some of the greatest wine lovers. Germany has extremely difficult conditions for wine production, and yet they manage to keep up with the world's largest wines easily.

They succeeded because by choosing the exact date of harvest and treatments in the cellars, they managed to create the perfect wine in a very harsh climate. As far as olive oil is concerned, we're still learning here, we're in constant contact with Italian and Spanish scientists who have introduced me to new methods and styles in production,'' revealed Sasa Bernobic.

Back during the 2020 harvest, they launched the first Croatian branded olive oil produced with a different technique. It's a process which involves technological processing and is called denocciolato, in which the olive is pitted to achieve a higher nutritional value and a fuller taste of the oil. Production is much more expensive, and the amount of the final product is much smaller. The whole process was done in Italy..

“When you’re first getting into some things, it gives you a huge market advantage and the market loves you. That was exactly my goal - to create something new and different. What made me especially happy was that this oil was sold out in advance, mostly going off to the kitchens of private customers, and partly to Michelin restaurants in Austria and Germany,'' stated Sasa Bernobic.

They currently have five hectares of vineyards and 1.5 hectares of olive groves, and offer five wine labels and a limited series of sparkling wine produced by 200 bottles a year of Teran. The winery also has a tasting room, and although about 80 percent of their sales are based on the German and Austrian markets, they're slowly moving towards a goal in which both local Croatian sales and foreign exports are half and half.

An imaginatively created name...

The OH Wines brand name is based on three segments - it boasts the name of the Ohnici microlocality where vineyards and olive groves are located, OH is a carboxyl group of ethanol in the logo of each wine that signifies a modern approach, and the third part refers to the reaction they want to provoke - that OH experience when one tries the taste of something of high quality.

"Our customers are mostly tourists who spend their summers in Istria, and lately we're also becoming more and more interesting to local wine lovers, mostly people from Zagreb. We work with a very small number of restaurants, but hopefully there will be more interest from them in the future. This year we applied for a wine envelope with which we want to completely modernise the cellar and speed up the process of harvesting and processing grapes, and the conversion of vineyards and the renewal of agricultural machinery is also in the works,'' concluded Sasa Bernobic.

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