Producer Profile: It may be easy to forget, but Croatia is really a nation of islands. So many in fact, that they surpass triple digits; of Croatia’s 1,000+ islands, Arsen Rončević works on perhaps one of the greenest & farthest from the coast. The island of Lastovo is quite remote and very forested; it is not the typical type of Mediterranean island. There are no beaches, one hotel, and is only reachable by about a three-hour ferry from either Dubrovnik or Split! The winemaking project of Arsen’s is “Sv. Vincenco,” which consists of 1.8 hectares of the native grapes Plavac Mali as well as Plavina. There is a small parcel as well of Cabernet Sauvignon. All the vines are planted in terra rossa (well-drained, reddish, silty-clayey soil) and limestone soils, and the wines are crafted with low intervention and minimal addition of SO2 essentially at bottling.

Vinification & Tasting: A spicy, jazzy, autumnal rosé made from 100% Plavac Mali from organically farmed vines grown in Lastovo, a gorgeous, remote island located on the Adriatic Sea in the deep south of Croatia. The grapes are hand-harvested, direct pressed into stainless steel and fermented with wild yeasts. Bottled unfined, unfiltered, with no SO2.