Wine has been made at the Nespeš Manor near Sveti Ivan Zelina since 1794, and was cellared there even after the Second World War, when the building housed a primary school. Ludus litterarius is Latin for a grammar school, so Goran Hanžek, the manor’s present owner, named the winery Litterarii. In that school one learns anew the pleasure of fine wines made from Zeleni Silvanac (Silvaner), Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Traminac, Pinot Noir and, of course, Riesling. Litterarri offers a pure Riesling in its white-label line and in the professorial Emeritus with its black label. Riesling features too in the house’s finest wine, Magnum Opus, and in Gaudeamus, a sparkling wine made by the traditional method of second fermentation in the bottle. The Rizling Raj(n)ski festival on Saturday, 22 November, at Hotel Capital in central Zagreb, Jurišićeva 22, will be an excellent chance to taste them. 
Photo: nobilis777.space
Just four kilometres from Nespeš lies Hrnjanec, home to Vina Kos. The winery is named not after the blackbird (kos) that loves grapes, but after the family whose winemaking tradition reaches back to the 19th century. Today they are among the few in Croatia to grow Kerner, an aromatic variety created in 1929 in Germany’s Württemberg region by crossing Trollinger and Riesling. Alongside that child, of course, the father Riesling grows in their vineyards too, and Željko and Karlo Kos — father and son as well — craft an excellent wine from it. They also make Pinot Noir as a fine still rosé and as a sparkling, as well as an excellent classic red. They rightly take pride in their Kraljevina and Chardonnay. Those two varieties, together with Riesling of course, go into the fine, mature white sparkler Anita Brut, aged up to three and a half years and named after Željko’s wife and Karlo’s mother. Reason enough for a Saturday outing to Hotel Capital and the Rizling Raj(n)ski festival.
Photo: Matija Đanešić
The advance sale of tickets for the festival and its preceding masterclasses at reduced prices runs until midnight. Read more here.
16 November 2025
