Nerežišća on the island of Brač — an aerial view of the village and its parish church

Restović

Winery
Nerežišća · Island of Brač
Da jubavi ni…

(Were there no love…)

Love, work, legacy and respect

Were there no love, there would be nothing.

On Brač stone the work never ends. It is not hardship that binds a man to it, but love — for the land, for his own people, for what remains.

The soil is meagre and stony, full of sun. It has little, but all that it has — it gives.

Out of that love comes everything we put into bottles. The names on them are not grape varieties but words we inherited along with this vineyard.

Ours was only the decision to stay.

A vine is not inherited from our forefathers;
it is borrowed from our children.

Wines

Three words, one thought.

Da jubavi ni… (Were there no love…) — each wine finishes the sentence in its own way.

Restović
Lavur
Red wine

…there would be no Lavur either.
In the Dalmatian dialect, lavur means work — and in a vineyard on Brač stone the work never ends. It is not hardship that binds a man to the stone, but love — for the land, for his own people, for what remains. A vine is not inherited from our forefathers; it is borrowed from our children, and every bottle is the sum of the work of hands, of sun, and of a tradition we do not sell, but pass on.
That is our Lavur.

Plavac mali + Merlot
PDO Central and Southern Dalmatia
Restović
Rišpet
White wine

…there would be no Rišpet either.
In the Dalmatian dialect, rišpet means respect — a word that binds. We give it to this meagre Brač soil, where the fruit is fed by patience and toil, and to those who tamed the stone before us. We proudly follow in their footsteps, and this wine is our way of saying thank you to tradition. In every sip lives faith in tradition, poured into a drop of pure rišpet.
That is our Rišpet.

Maraština + Zlatarica
PDO Central and Southern Dalmatia
Restović
Znamen
Rosé

…there would be no Znamen either.
A znamen is a mark — a trace that remains. The spark in the labourers' eyes, the print of their palms pressed into Brač stone. In the drops of this wine lives time measured not in years but in generations, and an untameable longing that still runs in our veins. It is the song of our forebears, sung today in a new voice, keeping the same rhythm and the same love, and following the same path.
That is our Znamen.

Plavac mali + Merlot
PDO Central and Southern Dalmatia
A pine growing out of the stone roof of St Peter’s chapel in Nerežišća
St Peter’s chapel, Nerežišća

A root always finds a way, even through stone.

In the middle of Nerežišća, out of the stone roof of the little chapel of St Peter, a pine has been growing for almost two hundred years. No one knows how the seed found its way between the slabs — the wind, or a bird, the old people say.

Since 1969 it has been protected as a natural monument. When the chapel was restored, the apse was left untouched so its roots would not be harmed.

Our vines do the same thing, only more quietly. On stone the roots must go deeper than elsewhere, and the stone gives back the sun it holds through the day. That is where the minerality comes from — we cannot add it, we can only keep from spoiling it.

Brač, in brief

8centuries
as the island’s capital
15chapels
in the village and around it
XVIcentury
first records of vineyards on Brač
778metres — Vidova gora
the highest peak on any Adriatic island

Contact

OPG Restović Jerko
Kuk I/ 10, 21405 Milna
Island of Brač, Croatia
+385 91 263 33 39
restovic.vinarija@gmail.com