The official part of the world's most prestigious wine judging competition, the 30th Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, ended in the northern Adriatic peninsula of Istria on Sunday with the official ceremony of handing over the hosting to the Mexican wine region of Guanajuato.

“This is the biggest event organised by Vinistra so far, and we wanted to present Istria and Croatia to the judging participants in the best possible way, through a superb experience and a tour of wineries and our biggest attractions. This would not be possible without our partners, but also winemakers, members of Vinistra, who made an effort to show the participants of the evaluation the best we have, of course with a focus on malvasia and teran,” said the president of Vinistra, the association of winegrowers and winemakers of Istria, Luka Rossi, congratulating the governor of Guanajuato, Mexico, Diego Sinhué Rodríguez on hosting the 2024 event.

He added that Istria has once again confirmed itself as a representative wine region with exceptional wine quality and wonderful family wineries and that the reactions of the participants of the 30th Concours Mondial de Bruxelles are great.

Istria County Prefect Boris Miletic said that he is confident that the participants of this evaluation enjoyed the rich program and tour of Istria.

“I hope that you have discovered this little piece of paradise, that you had a great time after the evaluation in the Žatika hall, and that you will go home full of experiences and good memories, and that you will return to Istria and Croatia again. Today, when everyone is talking about the future and artificial intelligence, we can be sure that it will never beat humans when it comes to wine production,” Miletic said.

One of the world’s most respected competitions gathered 320 judges, including 14 from Croatia. Together with their colleagues who came to Poreč from 50 countries, they tasted and evaluated as many as 7,504 wine samples in three days, and the results will be published on May 23 on the official pages of the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles.