We are making history! The Institute for Viticulture and Enology has approved our application to register the First Lika Wine from the 2022 vintage. That date will be recorded as a new page in the development of winemaking and viticulture in Lika. A post on social media this summer was reason enough for a trip to Korenica.
Tomo Jakopović and Ivo Kozarčanin in the Lika vineyard planted by Tomislav Antunović
The Kutjevo winemaker Tomislav Antunović planted a vineyard at the Debelo Brdo site, a few kilometres from Korenica, the home town of his wife Maja. Among the varieties planted was solaris. It is an interspecific hybrid created by German experts back in 1975. Its parents are Merzling and a cross of the varieties Zarya Severa and Muscat Ottonel. It is resistant to many diseases as well as to frost and low temperatures. It survives even 30 degrees below zero. It accumulates plenty of sugar while retaining acidity, which makes it suitable for predicate, dessert wines too.
Maja and Tomislav Antunović taste this year’s freshly picked solaris berries. The acidity is considerably higher than last year
An extraordinary variety, says Tomislav. Until summer it lags behind Graševina in development, and then overtakes it in a month and a half. We had our first harvest on 30 August 2022. The grapes reached 98 Oechsle, and the wine seems light, but it is not. It has 13.7 percent alcohol, explains the Kutjevo-and-Lika grower and winemaker. The wine has a pleasant, clean nose of ripe white fruit and acacia blossom; its palate is soft and rich, the body medium, and its pronounced freshness is a combination of acidity and minerality. It is highly food-friendly and pairs beautifully with roast chicken or turkey with mlinci, with pasta and risottos in white sauces… and even with Lika trout with pumpkin seeds and pumpkin-seed oil from the Lika tavern Konoba Pastrva. From the first solaris harvest Tomislav filled 136 half-bottles (0.375 litres), which he sells in a wooden box, each such wine costing 150 euros. This is, after all, the first Lika wine in several centuries. A vineyard in Lika is mentioned in a Glagolitic record from 1451. Vines were grown in and around the Lika village of Srb. Vine plantings are mentioned in 1492 in the village of Sićevo in the area of present-day Mušaluk, and a year later so are vineyards in the village of Košćice in the area of today’s Goljak, and in Rudinka in Donji Kosinj.
The First Lika Wine’s ID card: 136 half-bottles were filled from the 2022 vintage; this is number 59. Each costs 150 euros
Tomislav Antunović plans to expand his Lika vineyard, and he also wants to bring back from oblivion the original Lika variety pršljevina, or pršljivka, of which he has a few vines. Genetic comparison has shown it to be closely related to Moslavac, Ranfol Bijeli and Šipelj, varieties of north-western Croatia. In Kutjevo, meanwhile, he makes three wines from Graševina. Under the varietal name he bottles around 12,000 one-litre bottles a year. Into the fine bottles go Luna, a Graševina that he presses, racks, bottles and does everything else for during the full moon, and Primo, a Graševina aged on fine lees. He makes about 4,000 litres of each and sells them easily. His plan is to expand production to 50,000 to 60,000 litres a year.
Tomislav Antunović’s Kutjevo wines: Primo is a Graševina on fine lees, and Omega a blend of four black varieties
He also has a red wine, Omega, a blend of Crni Pinot (70 percent), Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2019 vintage is a lovely wine, and even today it is remarkably fresh. The wine hunter has landed a real trophy, one sniffed out by Bacchus’s hound. Together they travelled, walked the vineyard, enjoyed the company of Tomislav and wrote this piece. The photographs were taken by Lucija and Rade Jug (Foto atelje Plitvička jezera) and Ivo Kozarčanin, and the video by Tomislav Antunović.
08.04.2025.
