What?
Juice 2018 Pošip, Merga Victa, Black Island Winery, Korčula, CRO
Grape 100% Pošip
Farming Sustainable
Tasting Note A complex nose of yellow fruit, citrus and hints of mineral salinity. The palate is ripe and quite with a wonderful weight and texture whilst remaining fresh leading into a long, dry and saline finish.
Who?
Black Island Winery is located on the outskirts of Smokvica, a small town on the picturesque Croatian Island of Korčula. It also happens to be the birthplace of Pošip. The locals have planted indigenous grape varieties on terraced vineyards carved out of rocky hillsides since the late 19th century. The vineyards are fed by the water from ancient streams which the locals rightly believe is a gift of nature. It also explains the why Black Island Winery decided to name the wine “Merga Victa” or “path for water” in old Dalmatian.
Why?
One of the key components of our wine buying philosophy is being able to source interesting and pure expressions of indigenous grape varieties. We aim to have classic expressions from traditional wine growing regions side by side with lesser known varieties from countries that one may not associate with wine making. This wine falls into the latter category and it is an absolute pleasure to introduce our lovely clients to it so they can discover something slightly ‘off-piste’ and out of the ordinary wine scope.
With?
Seafood is definitely the way forward here as the Merga Victa displays plenty of the saline, maritime influences you’d expect from a wine produced from vines planted only a few kilometres away from the clear blue waters of the Adriatic Sea. Whole white flesh fish such as Seabass or Bream, stuffed with herbs and lemon and oven roasted (or salt crusted and baked) would be an absolutely winning combination as the wine has enough weight and textured to hold up against bolder flavours. If you wanted to go simple and straightforward why not get a big hunk of cheese from the neighbouring island ok Pag (or if you can’t find this delicacy you could substitute with other hard sheep’s milk cheeses such as Pecorino).
