English
A winemaker with over 12,000 diving hours to his name, that is unique in itself. But the fact that all those diving hours were made to mature his wine makes it even more special. Get to know the unique wines of Edivo Vina.
Drace is a small village on the Pelješac peninsula. This peninsula is known for its fine vineyards and the wines that are famous all over the world. One of them is Dingač, known as the king of Croatian wines.
In 2011, winemaker Ivo Šegović 2011 decided to make this wine even more unique. He came up with the idea of maturing bottles of wine and amphorae on the seabed, the main reason being that the temperature here is constant all year round (14-16 degrees Celsius). The second reason for this is that the bottles and amphorae in particular get a beautiful unique appearance from their time on the seabed.
It took a while to get this under control. To investigate whether it is even possible to do something like this, they started at various locations around the Pelješac peninsula.
They had good results with the bottles right away, but the amphorae were more difficult. You can't just put wine in amphorae in the sea. Because the earthenware jars are porous and then seawater penetrates the bottle. And the pressure underwater can cause the amphorae to implode. They came up with a solution for that by placing a 0.75 liter glass bottle in a clay amphora.
Edivo is now the only winery in Croatia that matures wine in amphorae on the seabed. They have been given the exclusive rights by the government to an old sunken fishing boat that has been lying on the seabed for more than 30 years. They placed the bottles of wine and the amphorae on it at a depth of 18 to 25 meters, neatly secured against any risk of theft.
The bottles contain only Plavac Mali, for which the grapes come from the protected Dingač region. The wine is made in stainless steel tanks for the first few months. Then the wine goes into barriques for a year. Then the wine goes into the bottle.
A third of the bottles simply go into the cellar. Another third goes to the seabed as bottles. The remaining bottles are ‘mounted’ in the amphorae, after which they are also sunk to the seabed in racks. Every 10 to 15 days the winemaker has to dive there to check whether the wines are still in good condition and are not overgrown by marine life.
When the bottles and amphorae come out of the sea after two years, they are rinsed for a long time with fresh water to ensure that the micro-organisms die and the bottles and amphorae do not start to stink. Each bottle and amphora is unique. They have all collected different marine life during their stay in the sea. That is why they have named these wines Navis Mysterium, ‘the mystery from the sea’. And how it comes about exactly is also a mystery, but the three different wines (from the cellar, the bottle from the seabed and the amphora from the seabed) of the same vintage all taste completely different.
The bottles and amphorae are delivered in a pinewood box. The amphorae also come with a wrought iron stand in which it can be placed as an eye-catcher. Because after drinking it empty, you don’t throw this work of art away of course. You leave it as a showpiece or you use it as a water jug (or you secretly pour other wine from it).
