The organisers -- the agriculture ministry and local wine makers -- said in Zagreb on Wednesday that Croatia boasted a high number of indigenous wine varieties.
Agriculture Faculty professor Edi Maletic spoke about the importance of efforts to revitalise and preserve about 130 indigenous local grape varieties.
Indigenous grape varieties which have been cultivated in Croatia since ancient times are regarded as national treasures.
Croatians prefer domestic wines, survey shows
As many as 93% of wine consumers in Croatia prefer domestic wines, while 7% like foreign wines more, according to a survey conducted by Ja Trgovac magazine and Hendal market research agency two years ago.
A total of 89.9% of respondents said they drink wine occasionally; 25.8% drink wine at least once a week, while 23.9% do so on special occasions. 16.2% rarely drink wine, 14.9% drink it at least once a month and 9.1% do so every day. The survey revealed that 55% of respondents prefer red wine, while 41.1% like white wine more; 3.8% most often opt for rosé.
Croatia's 2017 average per-capita wine consumption at 22 l
The average consumption of wine in Croatia in the 2016/2017 wine-growing year amounted to 22 litres per capita, the National Bureau of Statistics (DZS) said recently.
The total production of wine that year amounted to 760,000 hectolitres, with the most prominent wines being those labelled PDO, or Protected Designation of Origin (449,760 hectolitres or 59.2% of the total production).