Winery Crashing

Here we are with another throwback Thursday travel post to Croatia. It’s not like we could have actually made it out of Europe without visiting at least one winery. It’s hard to say what my favorite part of this trip was because there were a lot of unforgettable moments, but if I had to choose one for the best story then this one probably takes it.

Let’s start with how we found this place. We were on our way back from Split because our flight out of Dubrovnik was the next day. We thought for sure it wouldn’t be hard to find a winery along the coast. This was the only one we remember seeing a sign for that basically was a tiny sign with an arrow that said, “Winery this way.” This means turn the car! What we did not realize that it would be a rather long drive that felt like we may have been driving into a horror movie to get to where we were going, but hot dang we wanted that wine. Lucky for us, there was the Winery Rizman at the end of this sketchy, unpaved road and not an axe murderer.

Upon arriving, we were still a little confused because there were absolutely no cars here. Maybe the wine wasn’t very good? The views certainly were. Let’s dive into what happened when we got to the door.

Croatian Thanksgiving

When we got to the door we were greeted by an older gentleman who immediately asked  us if we spoke Croatian? No. German? No. Spanish? …Un poco. English? Yes! He looked a little disheartened about what to say next until a younger man came around the corner to which he enthusiastically responded, “Ah! English! My son…” The younger gentleman took it from here. We asked if they were closed. They were. Did I mention that August 5th is the day of Croatian Thanksgiving?

He explained to us that they were technically closed because it was Croatian Thanksgiving, and they had friends coming over to celebrate in a while. We offered to leave, but he insisted we stay for a small wine tasting. Assuming “a while” meant a few hours from then we let him shuffle us onto the porch overlooking their olive trees and the setting sun on the ocean. About halfway through our first tasting, people started showing up. We absolutely were prepared to leave at this point because it was obvious that we were crashing a dinner intended for family and friends, but he insisted we stay until we were finished.

After the first glass, we even got to go on a private tour of the winery with the rest of the guests to see where they make and bottle their wines and olive oil. It was certainly a bit awkward walking around with their family and friends, but all of us were very gracious that they were so welcoming and inclusive. It’s not often that a stranger would show up on someone’s doorstep on Thanksgiving and actually expect to be invited in hospitably.

Winery Rizman Tasting

Of course with such a wonderful welcome, and a beautiful view the wine was absolutely fabulous as well. I’ll share with you what we had during our time at the winery.

Our first glass was a white wine made form posip grapes. Posip is a grape primarily grown in Croatia, and a very popular style of wine in the Dalmatian region. Normally, I would consider myself someone who prefers a red wine to white, but during our time there we drank a good amount of this style. It is definitely one of my top styles of wines I have had, and the Rizman Posip definitely trumped the category for our time there.

They also make their own olive oil, and they brought us a plate of this with some crackers to try. It was the perfect accompaniment to our tasting. Someday down the road I may have more input on my opinions of different olive oils, but for now I can say that I really liked this one.

The second wine we tried was a rose style wine called Rusula. It was very refreshing, and a good transition between the white and red wines that we were able to taste. Rose is a style that has gained a lot of popularity in the past few years because it is such a diverse style, and this one definitely was a very interesting option that would be pleasant with a variety of different lighter foods.

Finally, we were served a red wine, the Primus. I’m just going to copy the notes in this wine, so you get a sense of all the delicious things you taste when you sip this. Ripe blackberries, dried figs, blueberries, dark chocolate, tar and notes of sweet spices. I like that dried figs were a part of this wine because fresh figs were very prominent in every market we visited. This wine was dry, and very easy to drink.

After we finished our tastings, we took some photos with the sunset before leaving. We definitely did our best to make it worth our host’s trouble of inviting us in and sharing his day off with us. I think combined we bought 12 bottles of wine to go. I would have also bought olive oil, but I had just bought a bottle the day before. I 1000% recommend going here if you ever get a chance to visit Croatia.

What is the craziest thing you have ever done abroad? I think this one currently takes the cake for me. If I find out how to order this stuff online I will definitely add instructions because everyone should have some Rizman in their life. Leave a comment below, and don’t forget to subscribe via email or Bloglovin’ to never miss a post!