A few weeks ago while we were driving to Bosnia, we noticed a big stone wall running from a mountain top to the sea and the water contained thousands of racks used to farm mussels and oysters. We made note and knew we had to do a day trip to see this region of Croatia called the Pelješac Peninsula.
The two cities on the 55 mile long peninsula that are connected by the fortress walls are Ston and Mali Ston. They call it the Croatian wall of China, but it is much more pristine, more secluded and quaint and it is the 2nd largest fortified stone wall in the world. ( about 4 miles)
This is definitely a region for shell fish, but also for wine and salt. In the old days, salt was worth more than its weight in gold and the walls were built to protect this valuable resource. Ston has a complex system of locks to allow sea water into holding bins where the water can be evaporated, leaving the sea salt to be collected. We hiked the walls, but as is the case for much of our physical activity, it was late morning and sun started beating our brains. The views were worth it, though.
After cooling off from the hike, grabbed a map from the local tourism office that included winery locations and headed out to sample the local vino. Very few Croatian wines are exported so this was a unique opportunity. This region is all about the Reds. The most celebrated wine is Dingac (Ding-atz) which can be rendered as either red or white. Other popular local wines are Postup and Plavac Mali. DNA tests have revealed that California’s famed Zinfandel grape is the same (or closely related to) Plavac Mali. Our first stop was to Vinarija Grgic (read Grgic Winery). Miljenko Grgic, (Mike Grgich) the winery owner, is basically a Croatia kid makes good. He went to college, moved into making wines for the government of Yugoslavia, and then jumped to California and worked for a large winery and learned more, eventually opened his own California winery, Grgich Hills. In 1976, his ’73 Chardonnay beat several French wines in a blind taste taste in an event called ‘The Judgement of Paris‘. The French still fail to acknowledge that this even happened. Years later, after the Croatia Independence war, he opened a local winery to support the rebuilding effort.
After visiting, we drove to the local town’s bay and Douglas put on his trunks and went for a swim. The next winery we stopped at was Madirazza. Lisa had enjoyed a bottle or two of their Posip white wine we had purchased from the local market. The vines in Croatia seem to grow more wilder than in France and the USA where everything is in neat ordered rows. We walked into this cute space that doubles as a wine bar at night, and asked to sample some white wine. The helpful girl behind the counter whips out 8 glasses and 8 bottles of chilled white and starts to pour. We look at each other and think this might be a long afternoon. When we made it to reds, the same thing happened again. We needed to stop when she started pulling out the Rakija…
It was time to grab some lunch and we drove back to Mali Ston. Lisa’s research directed us to Kapetanova Kuca and we started with delicious, fresh, local mussels.
Thanks for the blog! I’ve really enjoyed it.