May the 6th, 2022 - The 9th Pink Day Festival has now officially been announced, and it is set to take place on the 21st and the 22nd of May, 2022, at Zagreb's beautiful Lauba.

The 9th Pink Day Festival, dedicated to rosé wines (together with the "festival within a festival" dedicated to extra virgin olive oil) GREEN IN PINK by Romerquelle, the official water of the festival, will be held for the first time this year over two days - Saturday the 21st and and Sunday the 22nd of May, 2022.

The 9th Pink Day Festival will also take place in a brand new location, and we're happy and proud to be able announce that it will be in the beautiful Lauba - a house for people and art. In addition to exhibitors of rosé wine and olive oils, we are announcing something else different - Pink Mixology - where our partners will be able to exhibit and the audience will be able to taste some pink gins, tonic waters and cocktails.

We are also looking forward to the After Party in collaboration with Lauba, which will take place outdoors - in front of Lauba, after the end of the exhibition on the first day of the festival, more precisely on Saturday at 19:00.

Pink Day's partners will also decorate their exhibition tables at this edition of the festival, because that is how they'll be able to enter the competition for the most beautiful table of all. Traditionally, Pink Day rewards the most creatively decorated tables with prizes - this time from Foreo, SMEG and Nikel.

Just like before, Pink Day will celebrate rosé wines and sparkling wines; extra virgin olive oils and pink cocktails; spring, hope for better days, a world without war and COVID-19; flowers, femininity, and beauty. It’s actually a two-day attempt to look at theworld through pink glasses! In a word: a celebration of optimism!

Of course, in addition to tasting the products, there are also educational activities and entertainment to be enjoyed. The programme of rosé wine workshops is interesting, as is the one for olive oils and Pink Mixology.

In one of the VIP corners, Pink Day will be joined by Kraš, who, as part of their recently launched #IJaSamDomaćica campaign, is trying to raise public awareness of how women, including those from the world of winemaking and viticulture, oenology or olive growing, are still the main people responsible for taking care of the household. The aim of the campaign is to remind us all that the job of a housewife is demanding and complex, and that in our society there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to a fairer distribution of household chores among all family members.

Pink Day is happy to include Visa Premium Card, DS Automobiles and Romerquelle among its partners. We're sure we'll be able to reunite a large number of visitors dressed in pink or decorated in pink, all of whom will be eager to socialise - especially after everything that has happened to us lately. The friend of the Festival this time is VAPT, and Pink Day is being held under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Croatia.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:

SATURDAY 21.05.2022.
13.00 - 14.00
Masterclass "VAPT rosé wines" powered by Premium Visa
Leaders: Dino Kušen and Juraj Dusper
15.00 - 16.00
Olive oil: "Indigenous varieties of Croatia"
Mentor: Edi Družetić
17.00 - 18.00
Mixology: Pink Mixology powered by Double Dutch
Mentor: Natali Borić

SUNDAY 22.05.2022.
11.00 - 12.00
"Rosé of the autochthonous variety" powered by the Ministry of Agriculture
Leader: Nikolina Paleka mag. ing. agr.

You can follow PINK DAY on the Internet: https://pinkdayzagreb.com/
And on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PINK-DAY-166888780125529/, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinkdayzg

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

June 10, 2019 - Association WOW/Women on Wine, popular as „WOW-ice “, is a very active (and pretty large) group of around 200 women throughout Croatia that are involved in promoting wine. Some are wine professionals – sommeliers, oenologists or wine bar owners and others are just wine lovers or wine and lifestyle journalists just like their president and founder, journalist and editor Sanja Muzaferija. Their mission is to constantly encourage young wine producers, especially women, but also give credit and regularly award all wine producers who please their demanding and educated palates.

For eight consecutive years, they give out awards for the Croatian WOW wine of the year in five categories: sparkling, white, rosé, red and dessert wine. The whole process of choosing the best wines is somewhat humorously titled What Women Want and lasts for about two months. Designed by Muzaferija, the selection is everything but lightly taken. It consists of three different steps, the first one being a sort of nomination/pre-selection list. The author of the list is a different renowned Croatian sommelier every year and the duty was previously performed by esteemed sommeliers such as Karin Rupene-Perdec, Alena Stuparić, Siniša Lasan, Mario Meštrović, Roko Bekavac, Jelena Šimić Valentić, and Željko Bročilović Carlos- This time, sommelier Filip Savić was appointed for the job.

The initial selection list always holds 5 sparkling wines, ten whites, five rosés, ten reds, and five dessert/sweet wines. The whole story begins from the initial selection list and after all the members of WOW have had one month to vote by mail, they come up with 12 finalists. The third and final phase of the contest is a blind tasting by three women knowledgeable in wine matters. They are the ones who choose the WOW wine in every category and the one that is being awarded the WOW Grand Prix Wine of the year title – regardless of the colour, price or style of the wine.  All five winning wines get a nice sculpture designed by famous designer collective GRUPA, but the main prize of this very well accepted and after 8 years, very well respected choice, is an attractive trip to one of the famous world wine regions, provided and powered by WOW.

So far, the winners travelled all over Europe: Gianfranco Kozlović to Bordeaux, Saša Senjković to Champagne, Moreno Coronica to Barcelona and Penedes, Luka Krajančić to Burgundy, Frano Milina Bire to Austria and the representative of Meneghetti winery took a trip to Tuscany. Last year’s winner, Alen Bibić, declined the trip due to previous engagements. The awards ceremony for the 8th WOW Grand Prix took place, traditionally, in the restaurant Balon in Zagreb.  The final jury consisting, naturally, entirely of women, has gathered previously at Jadranka bistro and has spoken their final word. They were: well-known and esteemed sommelier Karin Rupena Perdec as the president of the jury; Ines Matić, sommelier and Doris Srpek of the famous wine shop and wine bar Bornstein.

The wines that made it to the finals are: Sparkling –  Blanc de Noir, Peršurić and Pavel, Šember, and the winner is - Blanc de Noir, Peršurić.  

White wines: Meneghetti White 2017, Meneghetti; Grimalda white 2015, Matošević and Škrlet 2017, Voštinić- Klasnić - and the winner is the Meneghetti White 2015. In rose wines, the finalists are the Rosella Poletti 2017, Poletti and Rose Galić 2017, Galić. The winner is Rosella Poletti 2017. Red wines: Fuga 2015, Dobravac winery; Santa Lucija red 2015; Kozlović winery and Il Primo 2015, Fakin winery. The winner is Il Primo, Fakin winery. Dessert wines in the finals: Muškat Momjanski, Prelac winery and Graševina izborna berba prosušenih bobica 2015, Krauthaker winery. And the winner is Graševina izborna berba prosušenih bobica 2015, Krauthaker. The overall winner and the WOW Grand Prix new owner is Marko Fakin of Motovun with his Il Primo red wine that instantly gained the star status, not only among women voters.  The winner will visit the Hungarian wine region Villany in July. After the awards ceremony – the wine crowd stayed on to celebrate the 8th birthday of the WOW association together with the wine producers who proudly held their WOW „stars“/awards and the media.

Photos of the jury: Silvija Munda

Photos of the ceremony: Rene Karaman

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page. 

A wine and crystal summit of sorts between Slovenia and Croatia took place on Wednesday, 22 May, at the Rogaška Glassworks store in Zagreb. The event was organized by the Women on Wine (WOW) association, with some twenty members and a large number of media representatives attending.

Since the clouds threatened with rain, the event did not take place as expected in front of the shop, with a view of the Croatian Fine Arts Home building. Instead, guests mingled surrounded by beautiful crystal and art objects exhibited in the shop. Perhaps it was for the best since that made it possible for everyone to be close enough to observe these precious objects, handmade from the most beautiful glass and crystal. After all, love between Zagreb and Rogaška has always been a two-way street, and the store’s doors have recently been re-opened for all the fans of premium crystal objects.

The Rogaška Glassworks is the perfect combination of tradition, art and passion that lasts more than 350 years. The tradition includes the skills of the old masters, while the openness towards the new technologies has inspired a contemporary design that nowadays captivates customers of all generations. The factory has produced, engraved, painted, carved and decorated crystal objects since the 17th century. It delivers impressive 20 tons of crystal products a day and about eight million products annually. As many as 95 percent of output is exported abroad, and Rogaška was the first company from the former Yugoslavia which had its showroom on New York’s Madison Avenue.

The WOW members and media representatives had an opportunity to see for themselves the quality and beauty of artistically crafted glasses sculpted by Croatian artist Gordana Drinković. Rogaška was represented at the event by Sašo Ilić and Špela Sedminek. “In addition to being proud of the tradition, excellent export results and numbers, we are happy that our workshops produce well-known awards for most festivals in the region – from Porin, Dora, Večernjak’s Roses to Tour de Croatia, Snow Queen, ATP tournament and many other prominent events. In Rogaška, we never stop searching for new forms, precise craftsmanship, exciting new solutions – in forms, patterns, colours. Everything is handmade, and our crystal is one of the cleanest and therefore the brightest. It is important to note that everything is created, designed and realized in Slovenia.”

Although the product range of Rogaška is innovative and vibrant, and includes pots, ashtrays, candlesticks, picture frames, flower vases, and many other things that make a home or are excellent as a gift – the WOW members and the media were this time mostly interested in high-quality crystal glasses and decanters, quite appropriately for members of a wine association and lifestyle media representatives. The wine programme offers top-of-the-range luxury crystal glasses that provide wine connoisseurs with a new dimension of wine enjoyment, and a bar section with impeccable design to enjoy more relaxed moments.

The beautiful glasses of the Armonia line were filled on Wednesday with equally exceptional wines produced by Puklavec Family Wines Jeruzalem Ormož. The glasses are of a unique shape and are ideal for both sparkling wines and regular wines. The line also includes excellent simple glasses for water or whiskey and even wine on certain occasions.

This time, the guests drank “Penina Brut Estate”, sparkling wine produced by the Charmat method from Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. It is lively, refreshing sparkling wine with only seven grams of sugar residue, with plenty of citrus notes, and a dash of hazelnut and red fruits. The second wine was “Cuvee of Sauvignon and Pinot Gris”, an incredibly fresh and light wine suitable for this time of the year. Sauvignon gives it freshness and Pinot Gris elegance, with a harmonious and balanced result. It pairs excellently with chicken and poultry, and especially with all the asparagus dishes. Next was fantastic, complex Pinot Gris, “Pinot Grigio 7 Numbers”, 2017, an exceptional varietal wine featuring intense aromas of ripe apples and peaches, with a hint of vanilla – spicy, slightly pungent, with a long aftertaste. Finally – two Muscat wines. “Muškat Ottonel” is a dessert wine that nicely combines sweetness and lightness, distinguished by low alcohol content, making it excellent for tasting even when it is sweltering. It is a sweet mid-body wine that is characterized by nutmeg aromas and freshness and goes well with desserts. Finally, bubbles again. “Muškatna Penina” is a refreshing wine with sugar residue and enchanting nutmeg aromas.

As politicians would say, the Slovenia-Croatia summit, which gathered female wine experts, top Slovenian wine producers and – last, but not the least – the hosts, the wonderful Rogaška Glassworks – was hugely successful. We look forward to furthering bilateral co-operation in the areas of wine and enjoyment of life.

More wine news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

Photos by Rene Karaman

March 18, 2019 - One of the most eagerly-anticipated Croatian wine events of the year is almost here again. Organiser Sanja Muzaferija talks Pink Day 2019 in Zagreb.

Pink Day returns for its 7th edition later this month. Tell us about the concept and how it got started.

On the 30th of March, Pink Day returns for its 7th edition in Mimara Museum in Zagreb. At the WOW (Women on WIne)  association, we have been working hard for almost eight years, meeting at least once a month to taste, discuss and study wine.

So far we have organized or co-organized more than 100 events and on various occasions tasted many interesting wines, promoted Croatian wines, learned about foreign wines and varietals; enjoyed, socialized, and visited wine cellars and vineyards both in Croatia and in Europe.

Our most important and biggest yearly event, Pink Day Zagreb, has rocked the wine scene a bit, especially when it comes to women and rosé wine. It was my idea to slightly provoke the predominantly male wine scene - since seven or eight years ago women in the wine world were still rare birds and more often than not mocked for not being able to differentiate anything but whites and reds.

In fact, women are active in wine business and industry, women own wine bars, work as sommeliers, oenologists, in wine marketing…so we wanted to somewhat subversively start a Festival that highlights rosé wine – like Barbies playing with pink colour – in spite of everybody thinking both women and rose wines are frivolous. And see what happens. What has actually happened is that rosé became highly popular and that women working in wine are much more appreciated that they used to be.

Pink Day has grown year on year. What can we expect from this year's event?

Every year the focus is slightly different. In the beginning, we were trying to show the audiences and the wine community that we mean business, so we were serious, “scientific” and scholarly with the international experts who we flew from around the world over to do workshops at Pink Day.

Over the years we have changed and shifted the focus every year – always trying to stay fresh and a little different from other festivals. Sometimes we focus more on extra virgin olive oil within our Green in Pink Festival in Festival, but I think it is safe to say that we constantly grow. Not in numbers, because we are a boutique festival with no intention to gain more exhibitors due to the Museum space which we intend to keep as our home, but in quality.  And popularity. I think there is hardly anybody who is anybody in the wine business that doesn’t know about WOW and Pink Day.

With the focus shifts of Pink Day, we hope to remain interesting and fun. This year’s event is focused on Croatian rosé wines and is designed to be even more optimistic, fun, feminine and fashionable than before. Since we have noticed that the exhibitors try hard to be creative with their space and that both their clothes and their tables are regularly adorned with pink details and flowers – we decided to give out an award for the best table of the Festival. The award is pink stilettos by Jimmy Choo worth more than one thousand dollars. We think it will motivate exhibitors to be even more creative and that it will contribute to the overall atmosphere. Although, we are not complaining – our festival is always lively, happy, full of great wines and beautiful women. 

Tell us a little about the rosé scene in Croatia. What are the main trends, grape varieties, and what does Croatia do differently?

Croatian rosé is somewhat different because of the grape varieties and terroir – from, French rosé from Provence or Spanish or Hungarian... But so is every wine from some other wine. Nothing specific there. I think Croatian rosé can easily compete with any other from the world.

And, of course, the wines from Istria or the ones from Slavonia; those from Kvarner or those from the surroundings of Zagreb or the ones from the south are not the same…That’s exactly why you have to come to this years’ edition of Pink Day. We have prepared three interesting workshops – covering three different areas of Croatia. “Istria & Kvarner” by Mario Meštrović, “Slavonija and Podunavlje” by Dario Grabarić and “Pink Souih” by Jelena Šimić Valentić. Total exploration of Croatian rosé was this year’s topic. 

Pink Day was the first public appearance of the wines of Jo Ahearne MW, the first Master of Wine in Croatia a few years ago. Tell us about her Rosina and also the impact of her decision to make wine in Croatia.

It would be much better if Jo would present her wine herself. It is so great to have such an expert and such a nice lady as Jo here in Croatia. We have collaborated with her on a few occasions, not only at Pink day and it was always nothing but pleasure and delight. Just as all her wines. My favourite is Wild Skins that she makes so perfectly. She deeply understands wines and she definitely knows what she is doing, regardless of the colour of the wine. Many winemakers decide to wait until Pink Day to fill their bottles – so Pink Day is a sort of En primeur festival for rosé wines.

As I understand, Pink Day is not just Croatian winemakers. Which other countries will be represented this year?

We have many different countries participating. There will be French, Italian, Austrian, Slovenian and Serbian wines present –as far as I know. Croatian wines are the majority, however – which is in perfect tune with this year's orientation. Next year will be somewhat different again. 

Your thoughts on how the Croatian wine industry is developing in general?

Shen I first started with WOW and today – incomparable. Much, much better now. Both our wines and the export and the marketing and branding. But there is still a long way to go. It could be much better branded abroad, to begin with. But, no criticism now – we are approaching the most optimistic and fun Festival – Pink Day. For one day in a year we should all deliberately wear pink glasses and enjoy.

You are a multi-talented lady wearing many hats, one of which is running Women on Wine (WOW). Tell us a little about that and how new members can get involved.

My background is first and foremost journalism. I have been writing about theatre, fashion, film – and wine is my hobby and my passion. Pink Day evolved from the idea of WOW. The women who surrounded me at the time in the association when I have just started it – were working very hard and earned no money. Just like me, but that was my choice. It wasn't necessarily theirs.

So I wanted to create a commercial festival in order to give primarily them (and myself) an opportunity to earn some money and do something good for the wine scene – at the same time. That is my characteristic. Typical me:  trying to do as many things at the same time as possible and trying to aim for the win-win situation.

In the meantime, some of the ladies left and now they are successfully doing businesses of their own while I am still trying to help out the winemakers, entertain and educate the members of WOW... But, I am not sorry – WOW  is steadily growing – there are almost 200 of us in Zagreb, Split and Rijeka. Everybody can join as long they are female – (maybe we are the only women-only club in Croatia) and pay the membership fee (700 kuna per year in Zagreb, 350 if outside Zagreb)...And - Pink Day is doing well, it is very successful and it does earn some money. Clearly – it makes everybody involved, including the visitors, happy. Me happy!

Working hours of the Festival12 (noon) – 7 p.m., March 30, 2019.

Mimara Museum, Zagreb

150 kuna entrance fee

Take a look at a video overview of the 2015 Pink Day below:

Follow the Pink Day story on Facebook. 

To learn more about Croatian wine, check out the Total Croatia new information site - Croatian Wine in a Page.

The wine association presented the international festival of pink wines to be held on April 21