Vinarija Križ
Sometimes, all you need is some acknowledgement to make the jump.
...On paper the Peljesac Peninsula is a near perfect terroir. Bone dry, with a bedrock of limestone and dolomite covered by iron tainted clay. It sits on the Eastern side of the Adriatic and receives the full exposure of the sea and wind and the Adriatic's overall cooling influence. The Peljesac is a salty and mineral driven climate. The terroir is mountainous and hard and most vineyards demand manual farming simply due to their intense slopes. Tractors don't perform well here. The growing season and late summers are hot, but they are balanced by an almost 30 degree diurnal. This terroir is built to deliver structure in what it grows.
The predominant grape in the Peljesac is Plavac Mali and it has heirloom roots. Plavac Mali is the progeny of Tribidrag and Dobricic (Jancis, page 1087), and it is principally grown only in this area of the world. Due to communism and war, viticulture has been local. While this has led to slow marketing and exportation growth of Plavac, it has also allowed for old vineyards to be left to grow and flourish. There are has not been a drive to catch up with new rootstocks, double guyots, and Cabernet Sauvignon et al...
The results of all of this have the potential to yield a wine that can deliver a wonderful combination of both power and minerality and focus. The Peljesac wants to speak of its intensity thru wine and when given the chance this place produces a raw, alive quality in its wines that pair the heat of the sun with the cutting of the salt and limestone. Only one more ingredient is needed.
To deliver on this promise the right person needs to be at the helm. This person must come with conviction and principles and a vision. Most importantly, this person needs to see that all have to do here is....nothing.
That is a very rare thing to find in most people.
Imagine this story...
You are young and you move from a coastal city out to one of the most beautiful small coastal villages in the Mediteranean- way, way out on a peninsula. You get to work with your father and re-discover your family's old winemaking roots. There's no real market for the wines your region makes, and you don't have that many vines anyway, so you decide to simply start working artisanally. You can do this because you're small. It's you, and your Dad, and one hectare of old bush vines on a 45 degree slope. You're fermenting in your family's basement cellar.
There's no help here in this village- no mentor. Just your Dad, who's simply overjoyed to be spending time with you making wine. There's no one to taint your vision. Since you have started with this approach in the vineyards, you decide to maintain this philosophy into the cellar. Low and slow. Native yeast fermentations. No additives. Slow, untouched ageing in old Slavonian barrels. You're looking to make old wine, ancient wine- wine made before it all. Before communism. Before the war. You're not concerned about trying to catch up and be 'world class'- that doesn't even register for you. Your father's pride matters to you.
So, you start making wine. And then a few years in you get discovered. You get invited to go to Italy to show off your wine and tell your story. Slow Food asks you to come show your wines at their flagship tasting, Terre Madre. And then later that same year, the founder of Demeter, Alex Podolinsky comes to see you, and he shares a vision of the farming that you could be doing. He urges you to push further....
Inspired and energized, you do.
The best winemakers are a pain in the ass.
Our tech sheet is three pages long, small font. Its inquisition is beyond detailed. It covers everything from the basics of vineyard and vine age and soil, and cellar work, to large philosophical questions like- tell us why organic certification is or is not important to you and why. There are large writing blocks to allow our producers to go off and write their personal dissertations and philosophies. We encourage them to do so. Yet, despite the detail and the open format of this information request, we typically get the bare basics back. I know we're not alone. I've visited with enough of the great winemakers in the world to know that they all universally say the same thing:
"Honestly, I try to do very little in the cellar. All the work is in the vineyards. If I do that work, the wine makes itself."
Blah! Ugh! What is that? How can I tell that story?...There is no story!
Ah, but there is....It's the story of the courage to do nothing. To trust that it will all work out. It's like that scene in the movie Dune (2021) where Paul is in the ship in the storm and understands that the way forward is not to impose, not to control. He leans back, closes his eyes and lets go of the controls. The way out of the storm was to have faith and trust, and to allow the storm to simply work itself out. Oh how beautiful is that, right? And inspiring...That level of faith and release is also flat out terrifying.
But in wine imagine if you head down that path, and you get a nod from the elders, from the right people. It reaffirms your faith and commitment and something incredible happens- you actually get better. You get stronger in your convictions. You gain confidence in your inaction because you know the work is happening- the wine is indeed making itself, it just needed time and patience. This is what happened at Vinarija Kriz with Denis Marusic.
He started with a vision. His father Mile gave him the nod. He continued down the path. He got acknowledged by Slow Food in 2012 and again that same year by the founder of Demeter. And he's continued. He kept pace- focusing on the work, on the vineyards- he didn't let his ego blow up. And the wine 'kinda makes itself'.
Denis doesn't impose himself on the terroir. Instead, he has taken his hands off the controls and lets the terroir speak.
And now he makes arguably the best Plavac Mali in Croatia.
