As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marta Duic writes on the 30th of July, 2019, the Mikulić family from Pelješac entered this tourist season with a bit of a novelty on offer – glamping. With their campsite and their boutique winery in Mokalo and the Adriatic Hotel in Orebić, this investment was a logical next step.
“From classic tents, we’ve switched over to mega luxury and I don’t think we’ve made a mistake in doing so. This is a unique offer not only in the county, but throughout the region,” proclaimed Antonio Mikulić.
Mikulić explained that their Adriatic Hotel is the only one in all of Pelješac that operates for 365 days per year, it used to be a parish church, then it was a school, then it was a shop and an apartment building. He notes that none of the six rooms are the same, and thanks to their beautiful design, they’re reminiscent of the old sailboats, which they’re named after: Stipan, Paulina, Isac, Jacob, Mimbelli, and Pelag. Done in the eye-catching style of a luxury boat lounge, there is also an a la carte restaurant named Stari Kapetan, the terrace of which is a replica of a seventeenth-century ship.
“Our boutique winery is an upgrade the offer of our family-run hotel and campsite, accounting for about 25 percent of this business. Since we live in Orebić, the tourist centre of Pelješac, our market is right there on our doorstep and there’s almost no guest who visits our winery who doesn’t end up buying our olive oil or our family-branded wine. Although we sell almost everything we produce, we participate in fairs throughout the year, organise presentations, and send off our wines to be judged,” added Mikulić.
This is a local Pelješac family which has always cultivated vineyards and produced wine. According to Mikulić, his grandfather Josip also worked in the highest quality wine, Plavac, which is cultivated in the family’s vineyards in Pelješac to this very day, and in his honour, the wine bears the name Don Josip.
“As a kid, I went with my grandfather to the vineyards and to the cellar, and after graduating from university in Zagreb, I decided to return to Pelješac and devote myself to the job I love the most. We started producing wine in a serious way back in 2014, when we equipped the winery with modern technology and all of the equipment.
Since the guests of the family hotel responded excellently to the first bottles of wine, in March last year, we decided to open our boutique winery on the slopes of Postup (village in Pelješac), where we also do tastings and try to tell the story of the beauty of this peninsula, the weight that Pelješac carries, and premium wines,” explained Mikulić. They annually produce about 15,000 bottles of Plavac Mali and about six thousand bottles of Pošip.
The Pošip wine is bought from subcontractors from the nearby island of Korcula, and about 80 percent of the Plavac comes from their vineyards that cover 2.5 hectares in the best positions on the slopes of Postup, while another 20 percent is purchased from subcontractors, winemakers who have vineyards next to theirs. In addition to the peninsula, these wines are present in family-run small hotels and in better restaurants, they can be found in Split and Zagreb for sale, and can also be purchased online.
Given that their main priority is high quality and that a good deal of wine is sold to wineries, as well as in the restaurant of the family’s hotel and camp, they’re not focused on exporting.
“The tasting room looks like an old Dalmatian tavern and is especially interesting to foreign guests, and often they stay longer than planned in the relaxed atmosphere. In the few years that we’ve been open, we have had guests from almost all European countries, as well as from all over the world.
The most numerous are guests from Germany, Austria, the USA and the Scandinavian countries. These modern guests want to get to know the place they’ve come to, they want to taste authentic food and wines, and they are especially interested in Plavac which is our indigenous variety, and best results are known to be provided on Pelješac.
We also worked hard on the winery last winter, we made a bank and an archive of wines, so we’ve rounded it all together with a diverse offer for all guests – from the winery, the beach bar, the beach restaurant, the glamping, the camp, the apartments, the rooms, the hotel, and the restaurant right in the centre of Orebić,” concluded Mikulić.
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