Unusual grape varieties from less well-known places that have been used to dazzling effect ‘Like nothing else around’: wines from Istria in Croatia are satisfying and refreshing. Photograph: Getty Images ‘Like nothing else around’: wines from Istria in Croatia are satisfying and refreshing. Photograph: Getty Images Sun 21 Feb 2021 01.00 EST Kozlovic Teran, Istria, Croatia 2019 (£13.05, vinvm.co.uk) I’m a bit reluctant to talk about the “exotic” or the “off-the-beaten-track” in wine. As with their use in every other context, these terms rather assume that yours is the perspective that counts. Of course, the exotic isn’t exotic when you live there. And stories of deviating from the well-trodden path carry with them a whiff of the brave, possibly even pith-helmeted culinary explorer unveiling their supposedly weird and wonderful finds to the folks back home. Still, exploring the less-talked-about areas of the wine world has been a bit of preoccupation for me in a year when it’s one of the few acts of exploration (albeit only in bottle form) that’s been allowed. And the red wines made from the teran variety, such as Kozlovic’s, in Istria are certainly among the less-heralded wines you can find in the UK – wines, that with their searing but satisfying and refreshing rasp, rip and tang of tannin, acid, raspberry and cherry, and ferrous streak, are like nothing else around.