Product: Križ Grk
Country: Croatia
Region: Pelješac
Producer: Križ
Closure: Wine Cork
Alcohol: 14%

Manufacture dates on images and products are representative only. All bottles sold at Witrina are updated from the latest safra.

Grk is one of Croatia's rarest grapes, with about fifteen hectares in the world, nearly all on Korčula. Denis Bogoević Marušić grows his on sand on the Križ hill at Prizdrina on Pelješac, three rows of Grk to three of Plavac Mali, because the Grk vine has only female flowers and needs a neighbour to pollinate it.

Denis came back from Split in 2004 to his family's old vineyards and works them with his father Mile and his wife Maja: about three hectares of 45-degree slopes of limestone and dolomite sand, bush vines around sixty years old, everything by hand, and yields under half a kilo per vine.

The wine ferments on its own yeasts with four to seven days on the skins, spends a year in old, untoasted Slavonian oak, and gets no added sulphur. It comes out golden shading to orange, with mature apple, mandarin, pine and fig, very fine tannins and fresh, integrated acidity.

Serve cool with grilled fish, shellfish, risotto or pasta, and do not be afraid of a tasty piece of meat.

Vinarija Križ is the winery of Denis and Maja Bogoević Marušić in Prizdrina on the Pelješac peninsula, named after the Križ hill where their largest vineyard lies. Denis, a third-generation winemaker, returned from Split in 2004 to the family's old vineyards and works about three hectares of steep limestone and dolomite sand with his father Mile, by hand, with spontaneous fermentation and no additions, making 8,000 to 10,000 litres a year.