The 2025 harvest in the Tomac family‘s vineyards on Plešivica began suddenly. Although on the same day as last year, August 19, it was unexpected because, as Tomislav Tomac says, the flowering of the vine started three weeks later than in 2024, actually at the usual time, so it was expected that the harvest would be at the beginning of September. But, as usual, while walking through the vineyard with his son Martin and tasting the berries, the experienced winemaker realized that the ratio of acids and sugars was just ideal and decided to organize immediately, gather the team of pickers so that the harvest could start the very next morning. The grape harvest for sparkling wine production begins somewhat earlier than for still wines because they require more acidity, and since as much as 70 percent of the bottles in that winery are filled with sparkling wine, a big job awaited them, which is still ongoing. The Tomac family currently cultivates about 14 hectares planted with vines. The Pinot Noir has already been picked, now it‘s Chardonnay‘s turn.
We arrived at their most remote and largest vineyard, in Vlaškovec, at around half past ten, just in time for a break. The pickers, more women than men, were gathering around a wooden table under the open sky where they would rest and have a snack. They have been picking since morning, after gathering at the winery for coffee at 6:30, and will probably pick for another two hours before the hot August sun at its zenith drives them out of the vineyard, whose rows steeply descend from the southeast slope all the way to the dusty, unpaved road where a tractor and van are loading crates of grapes to transport to the winery.
Martin Tomac opens a bottle of sparkling wine and pours for the pickers, opens another and offers us as well. It‘s not unusual to drink homemade wine during harvest, but we rarely get the chance to drink one of the house‘s best sparkling wines during the harvest. And it‘s precisely the Diplomat Extra Brut, in which today‘s harvested Chardonnay from this vineyard will end up. Although Diplomat is six or seven euros more expensive than their Millenium, its sales have significantly increased this year and it has become their bestseller. Therefore, they intend to increase its production, which so far has been around 25,000 bottles.
DEMETER ON PLEŠIVICA
Most of the people participating in these harvests at various locations – about 25 in total – are from the Plešivica area and are experienced pickers. Some are even related to the winemakers, such as Tomislav‘s cousin Luka Tomac, who is permanently employed at the winery, or nephews Jakov and Jan who have been earning pocket money here for several seasons. Along with Luka, the only other employee at the winery for 15 years is Semir Ljubijankić. The two of them, together with young Martin Tomac, manage the harvest. The mostly female team routinely snips the grape clusters with scissors and fills the crates, while the men carry and load them onto a small tractor that moves between the rows down to the van and the large tractor with a trailer, into which they will be loaded for transport to the winery.
We go to the winery where Tomislav and Martina Tomac are waiting for us. While Tomislav takes over the grapes arriving from the vineyard, Martina, together with the inspector from the only Croatian company accredited as a certification body for awarding the Demeter label to biodynamic farmers, goes through extensive documentation. The Tomac family, who for several years have been guided exclusively by biodynamic principles in viticulture and winemaking, has now decided to officially verify it.
WINE PREMIERES
The tractor trailer pulls up to the crusher at the winery entrance, and father and son, Tomislav and Martin Tomac, climb onto it. The sun beats down mercilessly as they jointly unload full crates, weighing about 20 kilograms, into the crusher, and the air is filled with the sweet aroma of healthy grapes, attracting a dangerously large number of wasps – which obviously also enjoy grapes untouched by systemic chemical protection agents. In the crusher, the grapes are separated from the stems, then pressed, and the must is transferred via hoses into stainless steel tanks where it will spend the next 24 hours settling and cooling to 16 - 17 degrees Celsius. After that, it will be transferred into wooden barrels where it will ferment for the next three weeks – the free-run juice and the first press will become Tomac Diplomat, and the second and third pressings go into bottles of the stylistically simpler Tomac Millenium.
On the pleasant, shaded terrace of the old wooden house, about twenty meters from the winery, the family and part of the pickers gather around the table for lunch. Tomislav‘s mother Pavica, assisted in the kitchen by granddaughter Petra Tomac and her friend Ana, serves an excellent stew of broad beans from their garden that takes us back to childhood. Then comes homemade roast, mlinci (flatbread), a platter full of incredibly sweet tomatoes, then strudels with cherries and cheese... Everything is exceptionally tasty and, of course, homemade, organic, unsprayed.
The atmosphere at the table is cheerful, relaxed, but every now and then someone gets up and goes to check the grape processing in progress. Marany and Rockstar 2023 are being drunk, which can no longer be bought, and then Tomislav Tomac goes to the cellar and returns with a pre-premiere, straight from the barrel: Marany 2024, which is not yet bottled, an amber wine made from 100 percent Traminer that spent three weeks in an amphora before being transferred to a large 2,000-liter barrel. Even on the first sip, it is clear that this is a seductive but complex wine. Tomislav Tomac does not hide his pride; he knows it is very good.
Martina Tomac brings out another platter of excellent homemade cured meats, salami, lardo, two beautiful cheeses. And again a premiere: Rockstar 2024, Rhine Riesling, mineral and so rich that it can be chewed. It is still in a bottle without a label, will hit the market in two months, and will probably sell out as quickly as the first two.
And what can we expect from the 2025 harvest?
- This harvest is one of the best I can remember, and I‘ve been in the vineyard and cellar since I was a child - says Tomislav Tomac. - We reacted on time, which is extremely important, especially in sparkling wine production. We managed to hit the right harvest date, when the grapes have enough sugar, but also acidity. All the parameters are in the ideal ratio.
RESTLESS SOULS
Tomislav Tomac, leader of the ecological revolution that is gaining more and more ground in the Plešivica wine region and advocate of an ethically responsible relationship with nature, in which his wife Martina plays a big, important role, is also known as a winemaker who never stands still. His natural wines can bear the same name, like Marany, yet still be significantly different from year to year. Even Diplomat, the sparkling wine that sells best for him this year, he decided to change – until now, the share of Chardonnay in it was 90 percent, the rest were old Plešivica varieties, and now he has decided to add Pinot Noir. Why, we ask.
- I simply can‘t sit still, none of us can. We always have to change something, both wines and labels. I don‘t want to do the same thing for 50 years, that doesn‘t interest me. I work by feeling. We‘ll add Pinot Noir because we have it, and because I want to give Diplomat a bit of that aromatic quality that the variety brings, meaning berry fruit, and a bit of creaminess.
Most of the grapes for sparkling wine have been picked, soon the harvest for still wines will begin. And after that, in autumn, work begins on restoring the soil, which needs to be loosened.
- The soil in the vineyard is under pressure all year – from the sun, rain, tractors – and it needs rest and recovery. After we loosen it a bit, lightly turn it over on the surface, we will treat it with biodynamic preparations and sow a grass mixture, as taught to us by Michele Lorenzetti, a great biodynamic winemaker and oenologist, our advisor and friend. It is very important to know how to use these preparations correctly because if you make a mistake in the details, it‘s as if you did nothing at all. And for us, there is no going back to conventional winemaking. We have always been, let‘s say, a semi-organic winery, dad and I didn‘t spray except with copper, so apart from using biodynamic preparations in the vineyard, there isn‘t much difference for us. In the cellar, we would sometimes still add yeasts when we suspected something might go wrong with the wine. But to send pickers into a vineyard treated with systemic chemicals and thus expose them to serious health risks, I could never do that. That is ethically unacceptable for us - says Tomislav Tomac emphatically, as after a whole day spent with this cheerful, hospitable family and their friends and pickers, we try to leave.
As we say goodbye, the well-known Citroën 2CV is just parking in the yard, and winemaker Zdravko Šember and his daughter Lucija get out and greet us. He himself, along with Tomac, is the author of excellent sparkling wines that have elevated Plešivica among the best Croatian wine regions, and he has come with friends and neighbors to share in the joy of the excellent 2025 harvest.
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