{"title":"Vinas Mora","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe first came to know Kreso Petrekovic as the first sales person for our friend and natural wine importer Zev Rovine. Croatian born and raised he never really left. For years now he's split his time between the Empire State and his native land where he has helped to revive the region's once thriving wine industry. Like many post communist wine regions in Central Europe, Croatia has had to deal with the hangover from the era when they were forced to make high booze distillates and industrially produced wines. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe way he has gone about this is by proselytizing the way of natural winemaking. After all, in many ways the process of making wine like this is very similar to how things were done before the industrial era. Kreso also put his money where his mouth is and founded a small winery Podrun Fanjo. It was a success and he has now followed suit with his second passion project, Vinas Mora, a cooperative winery near his home within the UNESCO-protected area of coastal Croatia known as Primošten. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePassionate about the area, its unique terroir, and the local Babić grape variety, Kreso has always advocated drinking wines made by the local farmers. This zeal is how he found Josipa and Neno Marinov, a local couple producing wine from Babić, just as the ancestors did one hundred years ago… with some improvements. He found the pair on the side of the road selling their wines from plastic jugs! \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTogether with Neno, they discovered nearly abandoned winemaking facilities of a local co-op. This site is where most of the growers in the area would sell their grapes. The closing of the co-op would have devastating effects on the entire local wine-growing community. The opportunity to take over was too good to pass on, and it was also necessary to keep the tradition alive. Joined by another friend and wine professional, Niko Dukan, the three of them founded Vinas Mora, with Kreso at its helm. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA play on words in Croatian, the winery name means “wines from the sea” because of the vineyard’s proximity to the Adriatic. Most of the growers involved farm vineyards only a few meters above sea level, where Babić vines literally grow in the rocks. However, the previously rocky, hardly accessible terrain saw incredible transformation through extreme human effort into agricultural land by manual clearing. Dry-stone walls separate the tiny plots with only three to four plants each, making it extremely hard to farm and harvest here, not to mention impossible to use any machinery. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe primary soil is terra rosa created by the dissolution of limestone and dolomite, is hard and tight, with very little humus. Nonetheless, the clay component allows it to absorb and keep the water long enough to keep vines hydrated during the long, hot, and dry Mediterranean summers. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe winery is a tribute to the Babić variety but they also make wines from other varieties, all local. The wines below represent all that they grow.. Andresi is all Babbic while Barbba is a blend of three red varieties Plavina, Lasin and Debit as well as one white variety Marastina. While very different wines they share they clearly display their coastal heritage. They are quintessentially Mediterranean wine with crisp, fresh fruit, sea spray salinity and particular to the wines of this region and intense rocky morality. All farming is done organically and since it is impossible to get any machinery into the vineyard all work is done by hand. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese may be natural wines from a cooperative but they are precise and clean. After all, Kreso wouldn't have it any other way. He wants more than anything for the folks who try these wines to know exactly what the wines of his native land taste like without flaws getting in the way.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[],"url":"https:\/\/sf.flatiron-wines.com\/collections\/vinas-mora.oembed","provider":"Flatiron SF","version":"1.0","type":"link"}