The taste of stone
You need more than an excavator to create a Grand Cru vineyard, but it definitely helps.
In April of 2012 I made a long-overdue trip to Croatia for what was back then the ‘hottest’ new wine fair to appear in years called, Zagreb Wine Gourmet Weekend.
As is often with any hottest new thing in wine, it didn’t last long and after a rather limp 2013 edition, it quickly died. Despite this, it left an impression with me due to what was presented in that first year. Seemingly everyone important in Croatian wine at the time wanted to be there which is why on the first day I met the very new project of Stina which back then was more commonly known under their commercial name of Jako Vino.
The wines were big, bold, and from Brač as the founder, Jako Andabak, had bought out the ailing cooperative (rather redundant to state in Croatia) in the village of Bol on the island back in 2009. He set about a massive task of modernizing the winery as well as planting new vineyards.
The work had really just started when I’d tasted those initial wines and would be ongoing.
Hrvatski Vrh
This was something of a crazy moment for Croatian wine as, despite the Global Financial Crisis emerging from the worst of the [German-imposed] austerity measures across Southern Europe, there was the entry on to the market of what I dub the, Hrvatski Vrh or “high croatian” wineries.
These were found throughout Croatia and a number of them even formed a group under the self-appointed, dad joke name of, “Grand Cro”. The bulk of them however were dotted up and down the Dalmatian coast and what made them different from the traditional wineries was a) owners having seen beyond the Adriatic horizon and b) coming into their projects with firm monetary backing, realizing what it takes to start a winery and keep it going. I’m sure the looming Croatian ascension into the European Union in 2013 pushed some of this as well given that people wanted to get established before all large agricultural changes would have to pass through Brussels.
Andabak definitely showed he had both fronts needed to be part of the Hrvatski Vrh vanguard. He was an owner of hotels on Brač, so he had the capital to back the wine project as well as a ready market to sell the wines at his hotels.
Beyond the first wines of Stina showing the seriousness of the project, they made a statement.
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