Our Grašac Beli 2020 took home the flattering title of Best in Show at the Decanter Wine World Awards in London this year. Thus, it was among the nine best white wines in this most important world evaluation. And that’s how it came to be the best-rated wine from Serbia came to be. Ever.
This award is proof of dedication to work in the vineyard and winery. It is also a tribute to the terroir of Fruška Gora. It is also an announcement that even better wines will arrive on the world market from Serbia in the coming years.
The grašac for this wine are not the most widespread and well-known SK 54 clone. The grašac in question were planted in the late 70s and early 80s of the last century, before that clone was created. The vineyard is 250 meters above sea level, in a position called Zaravan. In our region, they say that “the first wind arrives from the direction of Budapest, because from there it is straight north to the capital of Hungary”. The wine is made in stainless steel. The main technologist of the winery Marko Malićanin, Nevena Nedeljković as assistant and Aleksandar Vinčić sign it as authors.
In general, the secret of success is in the vineyard and an exceptionally good year. This is also the reason why we do not make this wine every year, because everything depends on a warm autumn for satisfactory quality. This is just the first bottled grašac harvest from that vineyard since 2012 and also the fantastic and award-winning wine that was offered under the White Reserve label.
Let’s spice it up a bit with history…
The very root of our last name Vinčić says a lot about the family tradition of viticulture and wine. Grandfather, who is now 98 years old, but is very clear in his head, told me that in 1771, as a family, we bought an iconostasis for the church in Molovin. It was made by the famous master Jovan Ohridski. He was paid with five pails of wine (about 250 liters in total). It was also recorded in the church books that the Vinčić family donated wine for that iconostasis.
And technologist Marko Maličanina has something to say about the work on this wine:
– Honestly, right from the start, when fermentation started, I knew it would be a great wine – he says. – We have been working with that variety in that vineyard since 2009. And already three years later we had that huge success with the 2012 vintage. Few people know that our Serbian white wine, more precisely grašac, received a bronze award at Decanter as Inat Molovin Riesling back in 2010. These are the first evidences that that terroir is something special just like that specific old vineyard. Of course, it is also necessary to arrange certain conditions in order to get the maximum. In particular, a very complex technology was applied to this wine. From cold maceration, through tabulation, controlled conditions, sur lie procedure that lasted almost a year…
Još malo o šampionu
Grašac Beli 2020 was poured into about 5,500 bottles, which is roughly half of that year’s crop. The other half was transferred to a Slavonian oak barrel and six barrels of 500 liters each. The wine served an additional year there. When it hits the market, it will be the Grand Fru label, which just recently won the title of the best white autochthonous wine at The Balkans International Wine Competition.
– In my opinion, both are great wines, with the fact that Grašac Beli is close to its zenith, while the barrique Grand Fru will only be in maybe five years. Those wines have an incredible aging potential in the bottle where they experience a fantastic evolution, even better than some Rhine Riesling. I could bottle the white grašac after a year, but I let it go for another year, until May 17 last year, and since we didn’t sell it, it spent an additional year in the bottle – says Malićanin.
