Our family always had vineyards, where wine was made for in-house use and friends only. Ranko (his real name, but everybody called him Rajko) tended small, old-fashion vineyard in the second part of the 20th century. Apart from grapes, back then the estate had plums, cherries and sour cherries. Plums were noticeably good and were mainly used to make extremely strong local brandy.
Younger generations were more into wine than brandy.
Časlav Vacić, in the late 80s, dug out half the plums and planted grapes, in 9 identical lanes, using all kinds of grapes available in Serbia: Prokupac, Frankovka, Kardinal, Hamburg Muskat, Župljanka, Beogradska Besemena, Plovdina etc. Best results were achieved with Frankovka (in Europe known as Limberger) and Prokupac (native variety) which are the core of our wine today and give him much needed strength1. Hamburg Muskat is added for pleasure and taste.
20 years later Aleksandar Vacić revitalizes the vineyard, with the help of the family, especially mom Ana – she takes care of the vineyard during the spring and summer. Its full strength our vineyard will again have in 2012.
We are at the start of our wine journey. We start in this small vineyard, in village Gradašnica next to Pirot, Serbia...and we have big dreams.
We'll be honored if you'll accompany us on this journey.
- Local folk likes to drink wine mixed with specially carbonated water, a drink called špricer; and špricer, they say, is the best when it's made from strong, heavy rosé. Youngest generation of Vacić family wouldn't be able to confirm this – we only drink pure wine. ↩