He commented on the history of the Prosek wine-making tradition following ongoing debates on whether Croatian wine makers would be able to make the Prosek under this name after Croatia joins the European Union.
"Prosek is a dessert wine made from grape dried in the shade... Distilled wine is also a dessert wine but made from grape dried in the sun," Mirosevic said, adding that there was an organoleptic difference in taste.
Unlike the Croatian Prosek and distilled wine, the Italian Prosecco, named after a municipality near Trieste, is a sparkling wine, he said.
Both good quality and high quality Prosek are patented in Croatia, although wine experts consider the former an industrial creation and a negation of the high quality, original Prosek and distilled wine.
Prosek quality is also regulated by Croatian law. Dessert wines contain a minimum 15 per cent alcohol level and an appropriate quantity of unboiled sugar which would increase the alcohol level to a minimum 18 and a maximum 22 per cent. These are also extract wines with more than 20 grams of dry extract per litre and a total acidity of five to seven grams per litre.
One of Croatia's key agriculture negotiators with the EU, Miroslav Bozic, has stated that during the accession negotiations no one demanded that production of Prosek be discontinued in the EU newcomer.