Istria's best wines - a brief round up

Decanter magazine's September 2014 issue features my regional profile of Istria, arguably Croatia's finest wine region - an area deserving a lot more attention than it currently gets. The wines and producers recommended in that article were necessarily constrained by what was available on the UK retail market at the time of writing. Here's a more complete summary of producers and wines, designed as a companion to that piece.

Wines were tasted during three separate visits to the region between 2012 – 2013, and at trade tastings in London between 2013-2014. I then organised a blind tasting of 26 wines from 10 producers on 5^th November 2013, in Eisenstadt, Austria. The wines were tasted and discussed with a small group of experts, including two winemakers (one Austrian, one Hungarian), a sommelier and a wine sales and marketing professional. The scores appear below.

The blind tasting was limited to wines made from indigenous grape varieties, mainly Malvazija Istarka and Teran. I allowed s…