Vučica Winery

The Vučica family has been involved in wine production in Dalmatia since 1985, and in 2018, they finally shared their winemaking history by opening the doors of their winery in Kaštel Kambelovac.

“Vučica” – the winery that is yet to triumph

If by any chance you need a wine story about persistence and the vision that ‘from nothing, much will one day emerge’ or a superb glass of wine (or even a barrel), then you will eagerly follow the story of the “Vučica” winery. We visited them in early summer, ready to learn the story from the beginning. And of course, taste it.

Romance under the porch

The entrance to a winery is important. Is it by the road, is it on a hill, does it have a soul, rustic doors, do you smell any alcohol, what do you see on the left, what do you see on the right. Well, the entrance to the Vučica wine terrace is not exactly magical. A few meters from the winding road in Kaštel Kambelovac, without dreamy clearings and vineyards, amidst the noise of traffic and the imposition of asphalt, there is their garden. And now we’ll cheer you up – this is the only thing to say about this winery that isn’t the best. Also, this is a fact you forget as soon as you take ten steps forward. That’s how it goes (right by the road) – but it seems they’ve turned it into a top-notch dish!

As we said, just ten steps from the road and your senses enter another world – romanticism squeezed under the porch with a few wooden tables, comfortable and ready for tasting exquisite delicacies and drops.

When passion revives tradition

That’s exactly what happened here. The “Vučica” winery has a long tradition of winemaking and grape cultivation. With vineyards planted in Budožići, Grovište, Kolovrati, Podvornice, the one in nearby Dugobabe has not only a production value but also a traditional, sentimental value. On those fields, Vučica’s great-grandfathers started growing grapevines and producing wine for personal use many decades ago. However, for many years, the vineyards stood and waited for hands to wake them up, prune them, nurture them.

The family tradition of growing grapevines and ecologically producing wine has grown into a serious business from which up to 5000 liters of red, white, and rosé quality wine “leaks out” annually. The first “new” vine was planted only in 2011 – the first vineyard planted on Kozjak with the idea to serve only family needs, explains the young man who welcomed us – owner Josip Vučica. He extends his hand and says – I’ve been an athlete all my life, vital, I never imagined I would end up here where I am now. Although initially reserved, he soon reveals that his father was a builder, not a winemaker, and that he made the winery for himself, as well as the wine. After him, his wife Anđela greets us, showing us the table waiting for us in the gentle summer breeze.

From a failed winery in Zagreb (we don’t know which one, but it actually doesn’t matter), they bought all the equipment in 2013. Like everything bought intuitively, not out of necessity, the equipment stood untouched for a year or two. It waits for its moment. It came alive in 2015 when the winery was completely renovated with the birth of the idea of a serious business and the opening of a family farm. They invested in marketing, raised a website. They work from dawn to dusk without question.

While Anđela brings out the first two plates with delicacies and pours the first wine from the wine tasting, Josip sits with us at the table, modestly listing the wine timeline:
In 2017, they made their first wine for sale.
In 2018, they officially opened the “Vučica” winery, and after dedicated work in terms of marketing, education, and sales, their first wine tasting followed in 2019.

Where do they get the funds, we ask. Savings, a little credit, and passion, they reply. When you have a vision and you give yourself completely, the big moment is a matter of time.

Wine tasting as it should be

Initially, there were only him, his father, and his wife Anđela in the vineyard. After the first wine tasting, everything started smoothly. The season was excellent, the wine tasting was a product that was hard to find in Split and its surroundings, and Vučica believed that everything had finally fallen into place. They put together a quality tasting of four combinations, and then Corona surprised them.
Before Covid, the business was boiling over. As we taste homemade sheep and goat cheese, sausages, kulen, tuna pate, smoked ham, salted anchovies, olives from the wooden board, they open up and say how every chair and table was made from old barrels. Nothing was spared, with the idea that one day they would return.

We taste the served homemade sheep and goat cheese, sausages, kulen, tuna pate, smoked ham, salted anchovies, olives. We look at each other – this is really a top-notch plate for a wine tasting! Just as it should be. We are interested in where the sausages come from, where the cheese comes from. “Homemade meat products: sausage, kulen, kulenova seka, ham, everything is homemade, from Slavonia, processed in Dugobabe.”

In Dugobabe, they own 4100 vines of crljenka/zinfandel, and only in 2021, they planted 2800 new vines of crljenka in Dugobabe. They estimate that there is a good winemaking future there.

“Tourists prefer white wine more, when it comes to wine tasting, 99% are foreigners. Our locals are strange. Local people find it hard to dare to come to a wine tasting in the neighborhood. But they’ll go to any if they go on a trip to Italy or Spain. We are still very immature here. Our guests first eat what you’re eating now, then they try the wine, and then they don’t want to leave until I sell them sausage and kulen.”

It’s a shame for ‘our people’, because what you get in the courtyard of the Vučica winery delights even the most grumpy visitors. And then the wines start.

“Vučica” wine list

The first wines were produced in 2019 and were mostly cuvées – without an oenologist, without much philosophy, the old-fashioned way. Our host says he never drank wine in his life until he met their current oenologist Luka Čulina. He did his job in the best possible way, but also kept the traditional processing method.

“Maceration press, the grapes are pressed immediately… it goes into a tank cooled to 10 degrees. It’s cooled for 48 hours, (at 7 to 10 degrees), pure wine is transferred to another barrel and fermentation takes place at 17 degrees – 15 to 20 days. Then everything goes into a tank until May and then bottling.”

The yeasts are selected, decided by oenologist Čulin. Ecological base – French yeasts, Garbelotti oak wood, turned out to be the best for crljenak. Crljenak is, he admits, the main wine of the house and in the future, they will devote themselves to it the most. We have nothing against it.

The rosé of this winery is a blend of babica, plavac, and crljenak. It has 11% alcohol, as it should be. The grape marc is stronger – it goes from 13 and above. But let’s focus on the 2019 crljenak that was served as the second wine of the wine tasting. The first one was Budožić Cuvee.

The 2019 crljenak spent 8 months in barrique barrels, 4 months in stainless steel, and only then in bottles. It turned out to be 450 liters, so they consider it a limited series. It’s a serious crljenak, although with each sip, we feel the potential it can achieve. We are served the one from Kozjak, Josip explains, there are different yeasts. Not more or less, but 16% alcohol. “That’s from the sediment – the longer it stays in the sediment, the better.” We feel that sixteen, but we ask them to pour us some more. That’s how it is with crljenak.

A gentle vineyard

The “Vučica” winery produces three and a half thousand liters of wine annually. Two thousand of them are maraština, and the rest of the 1500 liters are shared between crljenak from Kaštela and plavac. Interestingly, 70% of the wine is sold at the winery. Corona removed the rosé from the repertoire for two years, but fortunately, that blend of babica, plavac, and crljenak returned to the wine list.

At the end of the pleasant gastro-enological story, we were honored with a glass of the future limited edition crljenak from 2019. “Now you’ll try something special. This is the wine we aspire to! There will always be crljenak for the masses and the basic one will always be available for purchase. We aim for a bit more – this is an example of what red wine should look like.”

We decant it and pour it. The color is a powerful dark ruby embedded in the bottom of the glass. The smell, taste, aftertaste – everything is harmonized in the best possible way. We are thrilled, and rightfully so, we can say that this is the best wine of this winery. “This is an example of what red wine should look like,” Josip agrees. It contains up to 5% plavac, to ‘lift’ it a little, open its body. It won’t be filtered, he concludes.

Before leaving, they took us through the winery in the facility. Inside, 12 thousand liters of wine are nurtured, there are two wooden barrels where the crljenak from 2020 matures. They don’t use oil but airlocks. We ask for another secret in processing. “Well, we do it like everyone else – pouring from the vat, separating from the grape seeds, then it goes into stainless steel, sulfur follows, and one pouring. Then the wine is moved to barrique barrels for 7 months to a year. Then back to stainless steel barrels.”

In addition to wine, Vučica also makes liqueurs and brandies, olive oil, bakes homemade bread. They don’t go to fairs because they don’t have time, from the harvest to the end of January, they don’t leave the cellar. And then a well-deserved rest and preparation for spring and the season. And who, in their opinion, is the best winemaker in Kaštela? He answers without much thought – Putalj. About him, however, another time.