Benvenuti winery Motovun

The Family

Albert and Nikola Benvenuti are today’s driving force of the winery, but our family has been making wine for as long as our family memory exists. It is part of our family's tradition and our DNA. The knowledge that we have today we owe to dozens of generations before us. Remains of a jug from the Roman Period found in one of our vineyards testify that history. The artefact is now part of a museum in Trieste, Italy, but it is a constant reminder of what our actual mission is - to use the most out of our precious terroir in order to produce exceptional wine.

Modern era of our family winegrowing and winemaking business started in 1945 when Piero Benvenuti had planted new vineyards in surroundings of Kaldir. With the arrival of democracy and free market era at early nineties his successor Livio Benvenuti significantly developed family business by planting new vineyards. His sons, Albert and Nikola Benvenuti took over family business a decade ago and built the family brand from local to well respected, internationally recognized and awarded. Trophies and platinum medals by Decanter and International Wine Challenge in recent years are confirmation of probity of family philosophy. The real reason of existence of our winery is to keep family gathered at the place where all of us are born, to make a living from the fruit that traditionally surround us and to make a mark in the winemaking industry of Istria and Croatia.

The Nature

Our vineyards are growing on the highest elevation of all Istrian vineyards, up to 400 m above the sea level, which allows us to produce healthy grapes in the most natural manner, to wait calmly the perfect moment and ideal ripeness to harvest. On this altitude the soil is poorer, drainage is better, the sun exposition is excellent and there is a constant breeze. Poor flysch vineyards which are more exposed to sun are destined for growing Teran and other red varieties. On the other hand, those with a bit thicker soil and some clay in composition are destined to grow Malvazija Istriana and local clone of Muscat.

Varieties we grow are white Malvazija Istriana and red Teran as two Istrian signature varieties. Additionally we grow local clone of Muscat blanc a Petits Grains and several international varieties as Merlot, Nebbiolo and Tempranillo, used in one of our blends named Caldierosso.

Our most important vineyards we are extremely proud of are San Salvatore, Santa Elisabetta, Fratrije and Španjole.

Our overall vineyard area covers 22 hectares and 60% of them are planted with Malvazija Istriana, 35% of them are planted with Teran and rest is planted with other varieties.

The Winery

We are strictly family run winery, all the work in cellar and vineyards is done by us. The wines are craft made and handmade, respecting traditional varieties and wine heritage of central Istria. We believe that varieties such as Teran and Malvazija, which have been grown in our region for centuries, are perfectly suited to our soil and climate and capable of expressing uniqueness of the hilly Central Istria terroir more than anything else. Our aim is to produce wine with character and sense of place, which will provide a unique experience to the one who tastes it. Capacity of our winery is 100.000 litres and overall average annual production is 100.000 litres of wine.

The Product

Whether our wines are made from red or white grapes, or whether they are sweet or dry, they always tend to have pronounced minerality, depth, long length, balanced acidity and for every variety typical ripe fruit flavours; Teran with ripe cherries and black fruit, Malvazija with peaches and acacia flower and Muscat with grape aroma and dried citrus fruit.

If we should have to compare our wines with ones from some classical winemaking region we would associate our wines in order as follows. Teran: Colour of Teran is deep and tends to preserve its depth for long time, which is opposite to Nebbiolo that is pale, but everything else is stylistically quite close. Tannic structure, pronounced acidity, red and black fruit flavours, minerality, sometimes earthiness, and most of all, huge aging potential.

Malvazija Istriana: Could be compared with Greco di Tufo by minerality and intensity of perfume and to Viogner of northern Rhone by acidity levels and body fullness.

The Wine Range

As a winery we are devoted to quality so we don’t bottle entry level wines at all. We only put our family name on those wines that ideally express the terroir and our winemaking philosophy. Products we are most proud of are labeled with the single vineyard designation, which can be found on the label next to our family name. Names of our single vineyards are San Salvatore, Santa Elisabetta.

The Market and Audience

Restaurants and independent wine shops are our target market. We use the same pattern for every market we work on. Normally, our final customers outside Croatia are curious wine lovers eager to explore new horizons so the mediator should be an open-minded sommelier. In Croatian market, we are well known artisan winery and demand for our wine is bigger than the supply. In each market we try to find a way to tell our story and the story about our wines, especially to those wine lovers willing to explore and discover new and deeply authentic wines from Istria.

The Wines

• Family selection Benvenuti Malvazija (Malvazija Istriana 100%, dry)
• Benvenuti Rose (Teran 60%, Merlot 40% dry)
• Benvenuti Caldierosso (blend of Teran, Merlot, Nebbiolo, Tempranillo, dry)
• Benvenuti Malvazija Anno Domini (Malvazija Istriana 100%, dry)
• Benvenuti Teran Anno Domini (Teran 100%, dry)
• Benvenuti Corona Grande (blend of Malvazija, Muscat, Ulovina, sweet)
• Benvenuti Muscat San Salvatore (Muscat Blanc a Petits Grains 100%, dried, sweet)

Address
Kaldir 7, 52424 Motovun
benvenutivina.com