THE GRAPES OF FORMER WRATH
Cycling and wine in Croatia, where an ammunition bunker has become an award-winning winery
From Communist-era ammunition bunker to award-winning winery. Apparently it’s a natural transition to make in Croatia — the Mediterranean country that was part of the wartorn former Yugoslavia.
Our Bike and Wine Adventure excursion tour group from the Disney Magic cruise ship has just pedalled up to Dubrovacki Podrumi Winery outside Dubrovnik and guide Valgho Carevic is talking history.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says in his Slavic-accented English. “It was an ammunition bunker, but the wine is good and it’s nice inside.”
The only exterior clue that this bland and grey concrete edifice is now dedicated to the nectar of the grape is some wine barrels stacked out front and a stainless steel tank or two in the back.
But by the time we enter the airconditioned interior and Andelka Spulovic hands my wife and me and the rest of the group chilled glasses of white wine, the Communist past and 1991 war is forgotten.
We’re sampling 2011 Malvasija, a wine made from a grape of the same name that is notoriously fragile.
As a result, only small wineries tend to tackle it and when done properly are rewarded with fresh and mineraly wines.
Malvasija can also, deceptively, pack quite a wallop with up to 16.7 per cent alcohol. Thus its nickname as the ‘diplomacy wine’ for its role as a negotiating tool and tongue loosener in past negotiations both political and vinous.
We also taste three smooth and elegant reds — 2007 Trajectum, a grandly-named blend of well-known Cabernet Sauvignon and littleknown Croatian varietal Konavosko Vinogorje; 2007 Merlotina, what we know as Merlot with a few more letters tacked on; and 2008 Plautus, another blend of local varieties.
We buy bottles to sip back on the cruise ship, knowing it will likely be the last time we taste these yummy wines. Production is limited and Croatians and tourists are able to drink up whatever is made without having to export much. It wasn’t always this way. Under Communism, grape growers were forced to supply their fruit to co-operatives that made plonk and tourists certainly didn’t arrive on Disney ships to cycle through the countryside.
On the 45-minute bus ride from the stunning port city of Dubrovnik to the village of Gruda to start biking, guide Valgho asks us if we like politically incorrect jokes.
After some jabs at the Serbs, Italians and French, he says it would be nice if we could consume our wine before cycling because “drinking and driving is best.”
But we obey all the safety rules and cycle our 15-kilometre round trip from the winery without touching a drop and wearing a helmet.
The terrain is undulating and the scenery pastoral — all vineyards and wineries, apple and peach orchards.
We pass a cow grazing in front of a vineyard, stop to check on the progress of growing grapes, snap pictures of old-timer Evo Boney installing irrigation pipes at Koroman Winery, pause at St. Blaise Monastery and take a water-and-snack break alongside the Ljuta River.
The great thing about doing the Bike and Wine Adventure from a Disney ship is my wife and I were able to slip away for some adult time and leave our 10-year-old daughter on board knowing she was safely signed into the tween’s Edge club enjoying a cooking class, crafts, swims in the pool and Wii video games.
The stop in Dubrovnik is part of the Disney Magic’s 12-day Mediterranean cruise that also takes in ports in Spain, the South of France, Italy and Malta.
For more information: DisneyCruise.com and Croatia.hr/en