Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Photo: Tilda Bogdanović (left) with her friend Sibila Grčić at last year’s Dubrovnik FestiWine
Dubrovnik FestiWine will be held in Dubrovnik from April 16 to April 22. 70 winemakers will exhibit their most famous and best-quality wine brands. Dubrovnik PartneR Agency, led by Tilda Bogdanović, is the partner and executive organizer of this unique wine festival.
Tilda Bogdanović graduated tourism at the University of Dubrovnik, and she had her first encounter with PR in the City Administration, where, as she says, she spent ten wonderful years working in the affairs of the protocol, international cooperation and relations with the public. There she experienced her first major organizational projects such as the New Year Eve 2000 and 2001 celebrations, as well as scholarships for professional development abroad (Florida, Austria, France).
“Dubrovnik provided me the knowledge, experience and confidence to start my own agency. Although initially it did not look like a serious project, because it was born out of a hobby, unpretentiously and as a challenge during my pregnancy with my daughter Rina, Dubrovnik PartneR soon became a lifestyle. When you do the job you love and when you live your projects, you adapt them to yourself and your standards, then you can say that you are both satisfied and that you are successful,” says Tilda.
Media Marketing: In a conversation we had exactly one year ago you said that FestiWine is one of the most promising projects of Dubrovnik, and that it just needs to be developed further in the right way and the right direction, with good fusion of all stakeholders. Is the Festival going in the right direction, and are you managing to connect all the stakeholders under a common interest, and the wonderful story of Dubrovnik and wine?
Tilda Bogdanović: These last five years have truly passed quickly, and we are proud of our first little jubilee. Every year, we are trying to develop the festival further with better organization and new content. The greatest acknowledgment that we are going in the right direction is the participation of our partners, winemakers, caterers, agencies, institutions, sponsors, world renowned judges, journalists, the audience and, what is especially pleasing to us, new partners who enrich our offer with their programs and workshops.
Five years ago we were green, we started enthusiastically and learned as we went, and we continue to learn, because we have a lot more to learn. We try to listen, react and progress. We are listening to winemakers and caterers, because they are the center of this festival. Every year after the festival, we ask our judges for feedback and critique on how to make the next one more successful. And I will be honest, each year we can feel a better connection and greater fusion of all participants. The city of Dubrovnik has become one of the biggest partners of the festival. We began to do what every organizer of a manifestation hopes for, we are becoming more and more recognizable, the interest of winemakers is growing, we receive initiatives from sponsors, there is a growing number of prominent international journalists and wine traders coming to Dubrovnik FestiWine, tourist agents are creating arrangements of visits to the festival and all this makes us very happy, but there’s still a lot of work ahead. This year, FestiWine will include a working group for the drafting of the Law on Wine of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agency for Agriculture and leading Croatian winemakers from all parts of the Republic of Croatia.
Media Marketing: Idea for Dubrovnik FestiWine came from Nikola Dobroslavić, county prefect of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Your agency Dubrovnik PartneR won the contest and thus took over the responsibility for the Festival’s development and its entire production. How would you rate the collaboration with Mr. Dobroslavić over the last five years?
Tilda Bogdanović: County prefect Nikola Dobroslavić is certainly one of the most deserving politicians who since the beginning of his career as the County Prefect very systematically advocates the development of viticulture and winemaking of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County. He has founded the Council for Wine, he collects information from winemakers, both about the problems they face and their suggestions for improvement and development, he processes and solves their problems at all higher levels. He commissioned a Wine and Wine Development Strategy of the County, promotes its winemakers and their wines in the European Parliament, and advocates that they gain the highest recognition in the market.
The Festival was part of the project task of an EU project run by the County, and the entire concept and content of the festival with which we won the contest was designed by my husband Vido, and the cooperation with the County Prefect is flawless. The County Prefect has positioned Dubrovnik FestiWine as the central wine event, and we make efforts to produce the festival according to the highest standards.
Media Marketing: First three years only winemakers from the area of Dubrovnik-Neretva County could exhibit at the festival. Last year you opened the festival to the market of the entire EU. Is it the same this year or did something change?
Tilda Bogdanović: Last year we opened our doors to Croatia and the European Union, and I believe that next year we will also be open to all winemakers for whom Dubrovnik is a sufficient challenge.
Media Marketing: How do winemakers react to the invitation to come to the Festival? Do they respond in the numbers you expect?
Tilda Bogdanović: This, as well as the last year, the number of exhibitors is stable, with about 70 winners exhibiting. We think there is still room for growth, but we need to take into account all the circumstances with which winemakers are faced. This year there is a major inflation of wine festivals and events, many of which are held at the same time, and all of which require both money and time that winemakers need to invest in order to participate in a wine event.
Our goal is that wine makers leave Dubrovnik FestiWine satisfied, and with the intent to come back next year, and they can be satisfied only if we ensure quality placement of their wines, if we bring as many wine professionals as possible with whom they can negotiate a job, who will promote their wines in the world, which will make them feel that FestiWine is a platform for their growth and that this festival gives them added value and opportunities.
Media Marketing: The central event of this year’s Dubrovnik FestiWine is the wine exhibition that will take place on Friday and Saturday, 20th and 21st April 2018 in the wonderful ambience of the Sunset Beach in Lapad Bay. Is there something you would especially highlight about this event?
Tilda Bogdanović: Do you know that feeling when you think everything has failed and you are looking for any kind of solution, and then you stumble upon a jackpot? That was the story of the location of the central wine exhibition. Due to the restoration of the beautiful historical Lazareti, where we held the exhibitions in the past three years, we searched for a location and found a newly renovated Sunset Beach in Lapad, where the hosts greeted us with open arms. I think it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful place than this one. It is a space with the entire infrastructure both for exhibitors, for workshops, and for the final dinner and announcing the winners of the wine appraising. Sunset Beach, as the name itself speaks, provides a unique view of the sunset. With wine and sparkling wine, we will offer local delicacies such as Konavle cheese, coastal ham, Ston oysters, Adriatic tuna and desserts of Dubrovnik.
Media Marketing: Dubrovnik Wine Week is again here to attract all guests of Dubrovnik to come to the restaurants and taste the fine wines.
Tilda Bogdanović: The Dubrovnik Wine Week is the framework of the festival. It starts on 16th and lasts until 22nd April. It is hosted by caterers offering specially designed menus that are merged with select wines at attractive prices and contribute to the wine festival atmosphere. This contributes to the development of the overall wine culture that we want every visitor to experience during the festival week. You will easily recognize these restaurants, as they have the Wine Friendly label on large balloons next to the front door. This year we will also have info booth which will offer local delicacies and wine, as well as all information about the festival.
Media Marketing: Again this year you have included in the Festival program the Gala Dinner, where wine is definitely the main star, along with many other real stars. Among them are two renowned chefs, one of whom worked at the best restaurant in the world, the Danish Noma. The beauty of this dinner is in the fact that all proceeds go to scholarships for young Dubrovnik talents: chefs sommeliers and waiters.
Tilda Bogdanović: The gala dinner has a special place at the festival. Wine is the star of the evening, and it’s not just any wine – at the gala dinner we taste the winning wines from the Dubrovnik FestiWine Trophy. Wines are also a challenge for our chefs who have to create a menu around them. This year the host chef, Petar Obad from Excelsior Hotel Dubrovnik, and guest chef from the Slovenian restaurant Strelec, chef Igor Jagodic, will create seven attractive dishes to accompany seven top wines in the most beautiful ambience of the Excelsior Hotel – the partner of the festival and host of the gala dinners.
And the main goal of this dinner is to give young talents a chance to develop. It is a wonderful feeling when you see happy faces of young people who have won scholarships, and a chance to gain professional training in a well-known restaurant under the mentorship of a famous chef.
Media Marketing: I suppose that the marriage of wine and Ston oyster also continues?
Tilda Bogdanović: The Blind Date each year attracts great interest of our local winemakers who apply their wines to this competition, but also our sponsors, who together with professional evaluators, taste 20 white and rose wines, evaluate them in fusion with the famous and a unique Ston oysters, and then select the winners.
This year’s Blind Date will be hosted by our partners – hotel group ALH and hotel Excelsior.
Media Marketing: What is your most precious experience in the last five years of organizing FestiWine?
Tilda Bogdanović: FestiWine is a very complex project – a project that has brought me a lot of acquaintances and new friendships with winemakers, wine experts, our evaluators, partners and wine lovers. But the most important is the awareness of wine, the awareness of the value in a wine bottle, the immeasurable work and efforts of winegrowers and winemakers who are making better quality wine each year, and who helped Croatia enter the wine card of the world with the quality they produce, their effort, hard work and their love for wine.
Media Marketing: Apart from County Prefect Nikola Dobroslavić, who else offers you support in the organization of the Festival? Whom would you like to thank for collaboration this year?
Tilda Bogdanović: If there wasn’t for the Prefect Dobroslavic and the Dubrovnik-Neretva County, this festival, at such scale, certainly wouldn’t exist today. But we are especially pleased that we have gained the confidence of the Mayor of the City of Dubrovnik Mato Franković, who supports us and encourages the further development of FestiWine. We are also supported by the Ministry of Tourism and the Croatian National Tourist Board through their system. Croatian Chamber of Economy subsidizes winemakers participating in the festival.
We are especially pleased with the recognition from the profession, so this year, we are joined by the Dubrovnik Catering Association, and of course, there are companies that are sponsoring Dubrovnik FestiWine with the goal of endorsing one more event that makes people visit Dubrovnik in the pre-season as well. They are companies such as ACI Club, Airport Dubrovnik, international fund Ilyria 4. Our faithful sponsor is Travel Agency Gulliver with its excellent dispatch team and transfers. There are many friends of the festival who support it to the best of their abilities, and finally, with special gratitude, I would like to once again highlight the hotel group Jadranski luksuzni hoteli, who recognized us since the birth of the festival, who saw in us creators of new events in this destination, and who unquestionably support us and promote the Dubrovnik FestiWine.