2022 Zure Grk Bartul - Croatia, Dalmatia, Srednja i južna Dalmacija, Korčula (2/10/2024)
My first Grk! It's good!
This is not your father's Grk; this is apparently from young vines not in the ancestral source of Grk on the sandy grounds of Lumbarda, but elsewhere on the island of Korčula.
Rather yellow, canary-ish. The nose is flinty with pale yellow fruits, a spine of lemon, and bright floral notes, trace of white pepper, not unlike Austrian dry Riesling. Fullish-bodied for a white wine, but it doesn't sit heavily on the palate. Good flavor, something like underripe nectarine, touch of honey, piles of crushed rock, and a pleasing bitter note on the finish. My empty glass smells of granny smith apples.
I bought the Grk hype in the form of three wines from different Grk-makers; I’ll post the others as I open them. Always fun to dive into something unknown!
This is a great note. I’ve known for decades that Grk would come into its own. Hugh Johnson wrote something about it almost half a century ago that intrigued me. My first bottle wasn’t good, the next was, but I haven’t had one in a decade. I will pick them up at the place in MA that has them when I head down there next month.
2022 Matuško Grk - Croatia, Dalmatia, Srednja i južna Dalmacija, Pelješac (2/12/2024)
Another day, another Grk. This wine apparently comes from the Pelješac peninsula, right next to Korčula island.
This wine is delicious. It has an emphatically sprightly and lemony nose flecked with minerals and an infeffable sense of light herbs (very faintly like Chartreuse). The palate is lightly sweet apricot, flinty minerals, Meyer lemon and very fresh and mineral-drenched finish. Great stuff!
This wine is more immediately pleasing and less contemplative than the Zure; both are totally interesting and satisfying wines.
I am having fun with this and look forward to the next Grk.
Btw, apparently Grk means “Greek,” perhaps hinting at the origins of the variety.
