Ivan Enjingi delighted both the trade and the public at this year’s Festival of the 100 Best Wines of Croatia. Venje bijelo (Venje white) 2015 from the Kutjevo wine wizard is the best white wine of the judging. Venje white is a blend of Grasevina (Welschriesling), Pinot Gris, Rhine Riesling, Sauvignon and Traminac. Its first vintage was 1998, and it was named the best white wine in the under-ten-pounds category at the very first Decanter judging in 2004. This ten-year-old Venje thus becomes the rightful heir to the legendary Venje white of 2006, one of the finest wines we have ever made. Venje crno (Venje red) 2009, for its part, is the best red wine according to the Voice of the People, the choice of the readers of the nobilis777.space portal. It is a blend of hand-selected Zweigelt, Pinot Noir, Frankovka (Blaufrankisch) and Cabernet Sauvignon; in more recent vintages Merlot has also been worked into the blend. A tasting in the cool of Ivan’s cellar at Hrnjevac will be a superb refreshment on these hot summer days. 
Another nine wines from Kutjevo appear on this year’s list of the 100 best. Grasevina Ledena berba (Ice Harvest) 2018 by Kutjevo is the top-rated dessert wine, and the large winery also distinguished itself this year with an excellent Grasevina Vinkomir 2023 and a Rose Premium 2023 from Pinot Noir and Zweigelt. Their neighbours from the Galic winery have three reasons for pride of their own: their Rose 2023, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir, ranks third among the rose wines. It is followed by their Grasevina 2023 and the sparkling Code 639 Black from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Besides making very fine wines, this is one of the most beautiful of our wineries. Vlado Krauthaker, another giant of Croatian winemaking, also has two wines among the best, both from Grasevina: the ever-reliable Grasevina Mitrovac 2023 and the gorgeous predicate wine Grasevina izborna berba prosusenih bobica (select harvest of dried berries) 2019. And for the Sontacchi winery, set on Kutjevo’s Trg grasevine (Grasevina Square), a place among the 100 best was secured by Superslav 2022, an amber wine made, naturally, from Grasevina. 
Grasevina, but this time from Erdut, shared third place among the white wines. That is the Grasevina Tradition 2021 by Vina Antunovic. Also on the list of 100 are the Chardonnay 2019 and the CabFranc 2020 Grand Selection of this hard-working family, in which mother Jasna looks after the whites and son Branimir the reds. From the banks of the Danube, but from Baranja, the Gold Cuvee 2023 of the Zlatno Brdo winery from Zmajevac made its way among the best Croatian wines. It is an unusual, fine blend of a select harvest of Pinot Gris, a select berry harvest of Traminac, and regular harvests of Chardonnay and Rhine Riesling. From Ilok, meanwhile, come one great red and two lovely dessert wines: the Cabernet Franc Premium Selection 2019 of the Trs winery, the Traminac ledeno vino (ice wine) 2016 of the Papak winery, and the Traminac izborna berba bobica (select berry harvest) 2019 of Ilocki podrumi. 
A recommendation to close is another excellent red from Slavonian grapes: the Jakob Cuvee 2017. The vineyard lies at Brodski Stupnik, the winery in Zagreb in the sub-Sljeme zone, and the wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot that drinks easily, ages long, and lingers in the memory longer still. To read which wines from the hilly north-west of Croatia you should certainly taste this summer, click here.
12.08.2025.
