Food - Drink
Croatia's Unique Coral Wine Is Aged Under The Sea
By RYAN CASHMAN
In comparison to its notable wine-making neighbors like France and Italy, you would be forgiven for not knowing that Croatia is a bustling wine producer. From the bold red Plavac Mali to the almond-flavored white Pošip and the peppery Grk, Croatia has many unique local wines, but more than that, the country is home to the world’s first coral wine.
The Coral Wine Project was developed by Croatian wine enthusiast and entrepreneur Marko Dušević, who in 2013, started the initiative to cellar bottles of wine in the Adriatic Sea. CWP wines are submerged for 200 to 750 days at a depth of roughly 50 to 100 feet where the environment is devoid of light and the temperature varies between 46 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
The process of aging wine underwater amplifies flavors, imparting subtleties to the wine that aren’t found in wine cellared on land, and helps wine achieve more elegant flavors in half the time as traditional cellaring. The energy from underwater currents as well as the barometric pressure at these depths impart the wine with enhanced flavors, colors, and aromas.
Since coral wine is a cellaring process virtually any wine can become a coral wine. The CWP maintains a yearly production of 15,000 bottles from 150 different winemakers, and the bottles come out of the ocean beautifully encrusted with barnacles, coral, and seaweed. However, coral wine doesn’t come cheap, so if you encounter a bottle, be prepared to pay luxury prices.