Oysters and Zinfandel top our Croatian culinary experiences

After five days of serious research into the topic, I still couldn't tell you what's distinctive about Croatian cuisine. The locals don't help much.

"It's very Mediterranean."

"We like a lot of fish. And vegetables. But if you like meat ... we have meat, too."

We sampled a procession of beautiful food and wine throughout the country. But if you served it to us in a blind tasting back in London, the restaurant serving it could have been Spanish, Provencal or Italian. Palate pleasing, for sure, but not differentiated. We found two exceptions: oysters and red wine. (Not, of course, consumed together!)

The Croatians take their bivalves very seriously. Their coastline is a perfect breeding ground for this category of seafood. There's no sign of industrial pollution. Fresh water comes cascading down limestone mountains to meet the crystal-clear Adriatic, screened from too much disturbance (and many predators) by a long chain of islands. Most of the coastline functions as a giant tidal lagoon. As filter-feeders, bivalves like oysters, clams and mussels reflect the taste of the water they live in; the terroir of the sea. This unique Croatian waterscape produces bivalves that are subtler, more nuanced and complex than usual, particularly in the case of the famous Mali Ston oysters.

The coastal geology is perfect for grapes as well. Steep slopes with a limestone bedrock, not too much rain and thin, free-draining, not-too-rich soil are exactly what vines like to drive their roots deep and suck the best out of the Earth. Regular sea breezes keep the threat of mildew low. Though 68% of Croatia's overall wine production is white, most of that comes from the continental heartland. The Dalmatian coast's most dependable white wine is Pošip, a remarkably flexible grape that can remind you of anything from a rich Chardonnay to a light Pinot Grigio depending on what the maker does with it, but is generally closest to a mid-market Sauvignon Blanc. But mostly, this part of Croatia is all about big, bold, fruity reds. Early in this century, scientists tracing grape vine DNA determined that this region is the birthplace of Zinfandel. That, and its descendant Plavac Mali, will keep wine lovers very happy throughout their visit.

Both the oysters and the wines come in very limited quantities and are so famous that they sell out before their producers ever need to think about export markets. If you want to taste these uniquely Croatian delights, you'll have to get on a plane. And, naturally, the closer you can get to the source, the better.

THE GREEN LAGOON
Our day in Ston was, no doubt, radically affected by going out of season. The number of restaurants, shops and excursion boats makes it clear that in summer this place is heaving with tourists. On 2 November we had it almost to ourselves. We felt like explorers stumbling upon some lost city enchanted in time.

Because of a strategic position for both transport and agriculture, Ston has been occupied
continuously since the classical period. It acquired its present, remarkably romantic appearance in the 14th century due to a period of intense civil war. Residents protected themselves with a circuit of walls more than four miles long, encompassing the towns of Ston and Mali (little) Ston, harbours, fortresses and acres of agricultural land stretching up a lofty hill. The walls are a remarkable sight ... in some ways far more impressive than Dubrovnik's because of their isolation. The locals claim Ston's is the longest wall in the world after the Great Wall of China. Not even close ... but that doesn't take away from their majesty.

(It's worth a quick aside here to explain that the Croatian tourism industry has an almost Trumpian flexibility with facts. You'll hear a lot of big claims, like that Wall of Ston boast, that you'll want to take with a grain of salt. Such as the idea that Trsteno is the world's oldest botanical garden ... many other's make that claim ... and the assertion by everyone in Split that the US White House was built with Croatian limestone. White House historian William Seale has proven that the stone came, far more logically, from a quarry in Virginia. And while he acknowledges that there's a possibility that some Croatian stone might have found its way into interior renovations in the 20th century, he's been unable to find any records that validate it.)

Mali Ston, on one corner of those rambling walls, is now just a cluster of ancient stone buildings ... almost all restaurants ... sitting next to a tiny harbour with a few old-style wooden boats. Beyond is an emerald-green lagoon of startling clarity, framed by the mountainous coastline and tiny islands, and dotted with buoys marking lanes of oyster cultivation. We set off on the good ship Bogutovac, a traditional wooden craft plying these waters since 1954, for a cruise around the beds. While she normally takes up to 50 passengers, we had her, her captain and first mate all to ourselves. The last had worked the oyster beds of New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina destroyed the industry and sent him home, so not only was his English excellent but he could talk about the differences in taste, harvesting and cooking between Europe and the USA.

I have no doubt that the standard, high-season tour is good value for money. A boat ride, a little talk, a shot of local liquor, 3 oysters and a glass of white wine in an hour. For our €30 each, we not only had the boat to ourselves but took a lengthy pause at a floating harvesting station in the bay, where we could climb aboard to take an up-close look at every aspect of oyster production as the first mate talked us through the steps. Our slow return saw the four of us seated in the prow of the boat feasting on a full plate of six oysters each, all of which had been hanging off a rope in the lagoon just 15 minutes before. Beverages were all we cared to drink, with shots of traditional plum rakia or myrtle liquor on the way out (I think these shots were as close as I got to anything that was truly Croatian) and Pošip on the return journey. The sun was shining, the world was almost silent and we felt like queens as we made our slow, stately return. None of us checked the time but I suspect their usual hour's excursion turned into two.

Obviously, we tipped generously. If you want to follow in our footsteps, go here.

ANOTHER SUNSET, ANOTHER VINEYARD
Our evening at the Kovac Winery was only slightly less private and just as magical. While winemaker and owner Anton will host up to 18 tourists on any evening, on this off-season Saturday night there was only one other guest. As some strange trick of cosmic fate, we soon discovered that her father had graduated from Northwestern (our generation, but none of us knew him), so she slotted into the girls' trip like family. Fortunately, she shared our delight in both learning about wine, and drinking it in memorable places.

Kovac is about half an hour outside of Split in Kaštel Sućurac, on the bay on the North side of the Split peninsula. Thankfully, given both for the hassle of transport and because of the generous amounts of wine involved, the evening's £70 fee includes pick up and return to Split's Golden Gate. (In this case Anton driving one car and the terrifically informative Andrea in another.) In older times Anton's home town was known as Putalj, and that's the name Anton puts on his labels. Given that he says his family has been making wine here for 1,000 years, it's a logical throwback.

The tour starts in the vineyard itself, where Anton is well aware of the majesty of his view. He's constructed a pavilion at the top of his slopes, from which serried rows of grape vines and olives descend to the town below. Beyond that is the bay of Kaštel and beyond that the peninsula on which Split sits. (Though Diocletian's palace, on its far side, is out of view.) The slopes face South and slightly West, setting you up for a gorgeous sunset. At this time of year it was a long, lingering one. We sat in the pavilion watching shadows lengthen and the limestone peaks to our left start to glow in pinks and golds. We helped ourselves to bottles of rosé and nibbled from plates of local cheese as Anton spun tales of the local industry: the history dating back before Roman times, the range of little-known local grape varieties, the boon of the Zinfandel discovery, the challenges of keeping the industry going through the disasters of phylloxera and communism.

Ironically, it's capitalism that's causing Anton his biggest problems at the moment. He sells everything he can make. Keen to expand, he regularly makes offers on adjoining parcels of land (often owned by cousins). But in a post-communist reaction against taxation, Croatia has decided not to levy property taxes. The result: people have no incentive to sell family lands. But few have the money it takes to create new wineries. So most of the slopes around Anton are picturesque, but lay fallow.

As we waited for sunset we grabbed our glasses and wandered the rows of vines, now blazing autumnal red and yellow in the dying light.

Once the sun had dipped below the horizon we headed back to the cars, then drove down to Anton's house and small but perfectly-formed winery. Here he did the usual wine tour overview of the production process and, uniquely, gave us a taste straight out of the vats of 6-week-old zinfandel that had just finished fermenting. Drinking too much of this would knock your head off, but it was an interesting contrast to the finished, aged Zinfandel and Plavac Mali we were comparing. Those related wines were so close I think even professionals would have a tough time judging if their difference came from the grape or from the makers' vinification. We thought the Zinfandel was smoother, richer and fruitier, but the Plavac Mali had more complexity and a sharper tannic edge that would work better with rich foods. At £18 each we bought all we could carry home on the plane. (Sadly, given that I was travelling light, I could only manage a bottle of each and one of Anton's freshly-pressed extra virgin olive oil.)

Business done, we retired to Anton's tasting room to drink far more than was wise, though enough to make the per-person price of the evening excellent value for money. He even opened a bottle of his prized 2014 Zinfandel, sadly no longer for sale.

That's another oft-validated lesson from years of girls' trips: the more intelligent interest you show in someone's wine, the more likely they are to break out the special stuff. The same general rule works across all of tourism. You might not always be able to pull off the magic of a private tour, but the more interested you are in your hosts ... and the more personal a connection you can make ... the more special your day is likely to become.

If you want to book your own evening with Anton, you can do it here