Istria is a peninsula at the top corner of Croatia and has maritime and continental climate influences from both the Adriatic sea and the main continent of central Europe. French-Croatian winemaker Dimitri Brečević gives us a 101 Istria climate from the vineyards.
A full interview with Dimitri Brečević on Istrian Malvasia is available for subscribers on the exclusive video channel.
Istria Climate 101 interview
Amanda: So, Dimitri, can you give us a quick guide to Istrian climate and the different influences you have?
Dimitri Brečević: So Istrian climate… as you can see we are right, close, to the Adriatic sea. It’s like 10km from here, which is part of the Mediterranean sea, so somehow we are the northern Mediterranean climate that you can find. But what is very interesting is that even if you have this big influence from the maritime climate, we also have this big influence from the continental climate, which is just after the mountain just behind us here, which is part of the Dinaric alps, and after this mountain -which is about 30,40 km from here, the climate changes completely. So we have a very specific continental climate with a big difference between the winter and the summer. So we are really in the middle of that. So it makes very hot summers, hot and dry summers, but pretty fresh nights during September because the climate changes pretty quickly because of the wind coming from the north. But also we have the sea very close so it makes some kind of regulation of the temperature. You know the sea, the water, makes this regulation so you don’t have so much shock of temperature [change]. So that’s the very specific way of our climate here.
Other Croatian wine guide articles:
- Stari Grad & Hvar wine guide
- Guide to Istria’s wines (and food!)
- A wine lover’s guide to visiting Croatia
- The flavours of Pag island
- Six Croatian grape varieties to try
- Tomic winery and native Hvar varieties
- Importing Croatian wine into the UK
- Istrian terroir with Bruno Trapan
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