Zagorje Is Wine: A New Shared Identity for the Region's Wine Story

On 25 August, Vitus Winery in Mirkovec hosted the presentation of the new campaign and visual identity “Zagorje Is Wine”, a project designed to bring local winemakers closer together and strengthen the recognition of Hrvatsko Zagorje as a distinctive wine region. The idea is simple, but its ambition is broader: to connect wine even more closely with gastronomy, tourism, tradition and the identity of the region.

In Zagorje, wine has never been just a product. Vineyards, wine cottages and cellars are part of the landscape and of family histories, while recent decades have also brought major progress in knowledge, technology and wine quality. The new campaign therefore does not attempt to invent a new identity, but rather to give greater visibility to something that has long existed in Zagorje.

From Wine Tradition to a Shared Brand

The campaign was initiated by Radovan Marčić following visits to winemakers across Zagorje. His starting point was that “Zagorje Is Wine” should not be understood merely as a marketing phrase, but as a concise reflection of a region where viticulture and wine are deeply embedded in local culture. The slogan was then developed into a visual identity designed by Božidarka Brnas of Bestias Dizajn.

The aim of the campaign is to establish a recognizable shared identity that can connect wine quality, winemakers, local gastronomy and the tourism offer of the region. Krapina-Zagorje County Prefect Željko Kolar also pointed out that wines from Zagorje have made a major leap in quality over the past two decades, while joint regional branding remains an area with further room for development.

"Zagorje is Wine" is intended to help connect the individual successes of wineries into a stronger image of the region as a whole.

Why Was the Campaign Presented at Vitus winery?

For Vitus Winery, hosting the campaign presentation carries particular significance. For more than two decades, our project has been closely connected with the revitalization of indigenous grape varieties of Hrvatsko Zagorje, and these varieties represent one of the most tangible links between the past and the future of winemaking in the region.

Today, Vitus has six labels based on indigenous varieties, a registered mother vineyard, more than 46,000 grafted vines of local varieties and over ten hectares of vineyards. A particularly important place belongs to Belina starohrvatska, one of the most genetically significant old varieties of this region and a parent of a large number of internationally known grape varieties.

Preserving these varieties does not end with wine production. Through the production of planting material, more than 300,000 vine grafts have so far been produced for professional winegrowers and hobby growers in Croatia and abroad. In this way, varieties that were once close to disappearing are gradually returning to vineyards.

One particularly striking example is Modra kosovina, a variety that at one point survived in just a single identified vine. Through propagation, it was saved from disappearance and is now once again becoming part of the contemporary wine story of Hrvatsko Zagorje.

Examples like this give the slogan "Zagorje Is Wine" additional meaning: the identity of a wine region is shaped not only by the wines we drink today, but also by the varieties, knowledge and people who have preserved them.

Zagorje as a Wine Region of the Future

The campaign has been launched at a time when wineries from Zagorje are increasingly receiving recognition at both national and international competitions, wine quality continues to rise, and the region’s wine story is becoming more closely connected with gastronomy and tourism.

However, the recognition of a wine region cannot be built by one winery, one label or one campaign alone. It emerges when individual stories begin to speak a shared language.

For Vitus, that shared language begins in the same place as our wines do: in the soil of Zagorje, in its indigenous grape varieties and in the people who chose to preserve them.

Zagorje Is Wine. And now that idea also has a shared identity under which the wine story of the entire region can continue to grow.