Meet graševina

Foto: wineroad.atlantis-travel.hr

Graševina is a Middle and East European variety whose origin is still being explored. There are different theories in written sources; to be French, Italian or Romanian variety, and some authors claime that it comes from some other countries. One thing is for sure; graševina is primarily the variety of the Danube basin countries. Namely, it grows in all Danube countries: Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, and in few others bound by the Danube - Italy, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Macedonia. In very small quantities, it is found in a some other countries, like in Spain, where the small local variety from the Ribera del Guardina province names the genetic analysis of genetically engineered identities with graševina.

Graševina its wide spread owes to the capability to adjust to different soils and types of the continental climate, and rich and regular births. In the past, the international image of graševina has been damaged for two reasons. The first one is that the countries mentioned above promoted its limited quality, and the other is equalizing it with Riesling and being its poor copy.  

On the contrary, graševina is a high quality and completely original variety that should not be used as an appendix to any other. Today, the perception of this varietiy has changed, which shows a remarkably high representation in the selection in some of the Danubian countries, and even more shows exceptional popularity in markets such as Croatia where every fourth sold bottle of wine is graševina. One of the leading wine critics and wine experts, Mrs Jancis Robinson, in the comprehensive book "Wine Grapes", written jointly with Julius Harding and Jose Vouillamoz, gave the preference for selecting the first name for this variety to the Croatian version - graševina. There are several reasons for such statement among such as the notion of the word Riesling in the name and the extraordinary popularity and representation that this variety in Croatia enjoys. In many continental vineyards in Croatia, it occupies more than 50 percent of total vineyards, and the name of the variety in Croatia derives from the fact that the berries are in one stage green, very similar to green peas.