"Grgich Vineyard" Trstenik by edwis

the Grgich Vineyard which we find closed at 500 pm. We arrive at about 520 pm and do some heavy knocking on the door and yelling for attention. The Grgich man appears in the door and “J” tells him some story about how his father came all the way from Miami and a visit to this place is a very special event for us, etc.

The Grgich man goes and changes his shoes and then lets us in. He spends quite a bit of time telling us the whole story how only new special oak is imported from St Georges region of France, and then is used for the making the barrels. We see piles of the wood and then all the barrels. The barrels are then ‘quick toasted’ on the inside of the wood barrel producing a certain taste characteristic. Later the grapes are added in the barrels to begin the long process.

While there, we do some tastings.

LUCA IN GRGRICH PLAYROOM

is that old man Mike Grgich back in 1983; beat out the French for the first time ever with his entry of a white wine in a blind tasting competition held in San Francisco. They have a copy of the framed Wine Spectator magazine cover from then hanging in the lobby.

The rest as they say is history. Soon thereafter a California vineyard followed, which is called Grgich Hills vineyard, while the original Croatian site still operates. Back home in Florida we find the Grgich Hills bottles at good liquor stores selling for about $49 a bottle.

BEACH NEAR GRGRICH WINERY @ TRSTENIK

Croatian Plavac Mali (reds) and two whites to bring back as special souvenirs. Certainly it wasn’t like in Italy with the cheap wine prices, for here at the vineyard they still sell for about $25.00 a bottle, which is the same price as in Croatian towns. But as “C” would say “Zivot je kratak za slabo vino!” and “J” would say, ‘life is too short to drink cheap wine’. Hanging around with those two, you start to believe that motto.

• In a nutshell:A GOOD STOP FOR WINE LOVERS