TASTING COMMENTS
Flagship of our house, Vrbanjka 2019 shows purety and depth. Wine aromas are complex, with spicy notes of white pepper and cinnamon infused by fruity aromas reminiscent of blueberry and backberry, as well as underlying hints of Mediterranean dried herbs. The palate is medium plus, deep, fresh and pure at the same time with a very long vertical finish. Tannins are firm, but the wine is already enjoyable. Elegance, complexity, finesse and freshness in the glass. It is a wine built for a long ageing.
WINEMAKING STORY
Single vineyard wine. Grapes for this wine are harvested only from the top and steepest parts of the vineyard, where the growth is regulated by poor, dry stony/marly soils with high proportion of limestone. Poor growing conditions results in small berries, small bunches and low yields what in turn brings concentration and complexity to the wines. Grapes are hand harvested in 15 kg crates, destemmed and whole berry fermented in open vats with 3 weeks of skin contact. After pressing into stainless steel tank to ensure that ferments are dry and to perform malolactic fermentation, the wine is kept in a second fill French oak barrique barrels and 500 l barrels for 12 months and 12 more months in stainless steel before bottling without fining and filtration.
VINTAGE 2019
The spring was extremely cold and wet, what caused late phenology. Spring was followed by an exceptional warm and dry June, one of the warmest in the history of monitoring agrometeorological data. Extremely warm and dry weather during flowering period influenced the heterogeneity among the berries, which was carried over to time of harvest. July and August were averagely warm while the beginning of September was marked by lower rain range than average. 2019 vintage was excellent for white wines, showing exceptional aromatic intensity, elegance and freshness, while the beautiful end of autumn brought ripeness, spiciness and elegance to reds.
