Wine from Generations of Clay & Limestone

The Bošković family's story is one of diaspora and return. In 1985, Ivan Bošković left the village of Pješevac Kula, near Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to build a new life in Sydney, Australia. [^61^] He was part of a wave of migration from the Balkans that scattered families across the world, taking with them their traditions, their recipes, and their connection to the land. But the land remained — the clay-limestone vineyards, the old vines, the generations of accumulated knowledge. It waited, as land always does, for someone to return.

That someone was Kazimir. In 2024, nearly four decades after his father's departure, he came back to Pješevac Kula to reclaim the family farm and to make wine. [^61^] But he did not return with the intention of replicating the past. Kazimir had spent years working in wineries in New Zealand, Austria, and Canada — three countries with very different winemaking philosophies, climates, and traditions. [^61^] He brought back with him a global perspective and a specific conviction: that the best way to honour his family's land was to intervene as little as possible, to let the vineyard speak, and to make wines that were honest rather than polished.

The Bošković family has been farming in Pješevac Kula for generations — the exact span is lost to memory, but the continuity is felt in the old vines, the stone walls, and the knowledge passed from hand to hand. [^61^] Kazimir's return was not a rupture but a continuation, a new chapter written in the same ink. The first harvest under his direction was gorgeous — a validation of both the terroir and the decision to farm it with patience and respect. The wines that emerged from that harvest were fermented with indigenous yeast, with no temperature control, with minimal or zero sulfur, and with no filtering or fining. [^61^] This is not a rejection of technology; it is an embrace of something older and, in Kazimir's view, more true.

Kazimir Bošković's winemaking is a direct translation of his vineyard philosophy into the cellar. The gorgeous first harvest was fermented entirely with indigenous yeast — the wild microflora that lives on the grape skins and in the winery, unique to this place and this moment. [^61^] No commercial yeasts were added, no laboratory strains selected for predictability. The fermentation was allowed to proceed at its own pace, with zero temperature control — whatever the ambient conditions provided, the wine accepted. [^61^] This is a radical trust in nature, a willingness to let the wine find its own path rather than forcing it into a predetermined shape.

Sulfur was used minimally or not at all — a decision that carries risk but preserves the wine's living character. [^61^] The wines were neither filtered nor fined, retaining their natural texture, their sediments, and their full aromatic complexity. This is not negligence; it is intention. Kazimir's experiences in New Zealand, Austria, and Canada taught him that the best wines are often the ones that have been left alone, that have been allowed to express their terroir without the smoothing hand of technology. The result is wines that are honest, sometimes challenging, and deeply reflective of their origin.

The Žilavka from Bošković is an honest reflection of the power and grace of the Herzegovina region — a white wine of mineral backbone, floral aromatics, and a texture that speaks to the clay-limestone soils and the hands that farmed it. [^61^] The Blatina is equally direct — a red of deep colour, firm tannin, and the kind of savoury complexity that comes from indigenous yeast fermentation and patient ageing. Both wines are made in tiny quantities from a first vintage that announced the arrival of a serious new voice in Balkan natural wine. They are not polished products; they are living documents of a place, a family, and a philosophy of minimal intervention.