A GOURMET food and wine tour in Croatia? It sounds as if someone is pulling my leg. After all, how much goulash, cabbage and potatoes can a girl eat? As a food destination, Croatia rates somewhere below Outer Mongolia. But this was not just Croatia, this was Istria, the little heart-shaped Adriatic peninsula that hangs nearest to Italy, and shares much of its beauty and charm. With 430 kilometres (267 miles) of coastline, gently rolling hills and fertile plains, it has long been a small but rich natural larder.
And luckily, Croatian-born Vanessa Borcic knows this. Her British-based holiday company, My Croatia, now puts together self-drive packages designed to show off the best of Istrian food and wine.
“This is a side of Istria few people know about: the fine wines, the truffles, the wild asparagus, the organic markets,” she says.
It doesn’t take long to convice me. The eating and drinking begins two minutes after my husband Terry and I arrive at Stancija 1904, Drazenka and Rolf Moll’s charming country estate near the picturesque Renaissance town of Svetvincenat. This was to be our home for the next week, in a comfortable room with its own sunny terrace and kitchen.
We sit at a big ginghamcovered table in the late afternoon sunshine under a mighty lodanja tree, while mine host opens a bottle of chilled Malvasia, Istria’s most popular white wine. This is an elegant, dry-but-fruity number matured in French oak by the trailblazing winemaker Ivica Matosevic. Mine hostess then appears carrying a leg of Istrian prosciutto, which we eat with crusty, home-baked bread.
The family dog, Cha Cha, peers curiously down at us from the roof, daughter Vera comes home from school, and a tiny electric train that looks as if it’s come from a model train set tootles by next to the garden, sounding its horn in greeting. We all get up to wave, and all the people on the train wave back.
That night, we sit in front of a huge stone fireplace as Rolf opens a bottle of Teran, a robust full-bodied red from Franc Arman which could have been made especially to accompany Drazenka’s “typical Istrian meal”. Goulash, cabbage and potatoes? Hah! First comes scuta, a fresh curdy sheep’s milk cheese dressed with pine nuts and Istrian olive oil. Next up, a lovely, hearty vegetable soup known as manestra. Then njoki alla mariposa — light-as-air potato gnocchi with a rich, voluptuous veal ragu. After a little Istrian grappa and a platter of Drazenka’s home-baked pastries, I am as happy as a clam.
There follow days of tootling around country roads; stopping at porchetta stalls; strolling through medieval hilltop towns; admiring ancient churches, and sipping caffè lattes in the sun by the sea.
One day, we team up with Nada Bonca, an immediately likeable local guide, whose onerous task it is to take us on a wine tour. Oh, OK, if we have to. Luckily we’ve put in a bit of training. But first, by mutual consent, we sip coffee in the sun outside the Bar Riviera in the enchanting Venetian seaside town of Rovinj, with its tall pink clock tower and Baroque cathedral. If I squint, I could be in Portofino.
“This is Blue Istria,” says Nada, waving her hand at the ridiculously clear blue waters. “Inland is Green Istria, with forests, mountain trails and wild game.”
For the next few hours, we discover Red and White Istria as well, as we visit the wineries of Ivica Matosevic and Franc Arman — both of whom seem like old friends by now — and sip Piero Poletti of Poletti wines in Visnjan, whose cool cellar is dug from the local quartz.
Then it’s time for lunch at the family-run Astarea restaurant in Brtonigla, to feast on a giant, fresh gilthead bream cooked with potatoes, tomatoes, onions and squid over hot coals in an open hearth, under a dome-lidded pot known as a cripnja. I’d run the recipe in my food column in a trice — except that you need an open hearth, a cripnja, and 30 years’ experience cooking with hot coals.
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