The Dark Horse, the Freckled Grape & the Selekcija Hand

Ivan Kosovec's wine story began where the best ones do: with a grandfather. In high school, Ivan helped his late grandfather in the family vineyard of 300 vines and in the cellar — mowing grass, pruning, washing barrels, racking wines, harvesting, and tasting. He quickly appreciated the work, enjoying the physical labour outdoors far more than the administrative occupations he saw his parents take on. The seed was planted long before the vines were.

In 2003, at 18, Ivan made two life-defining moves at once. He left for Istria to study oenology in Poreč — the formal education he now calls the outlier, not the plan. And that same year, with the support of his family, he bought nearly 4 hectares of pristine but neglected land at the top of a hill in his native Moslavina — a property crowned by a small, forgotten 170-year-old traditional wooden house, ideal for vineyards and a cellar. "This is my native region," he says simply, "and it's only natural to work with Škrlet, our indigenous white variety." From 2003 to 2005 the family deforested, cleaned and cultivated the land; in the spring of 2005, 19,000 vines went in — Škrlet above all, with Chardonnay, Frankovka, Zweigelt and Pinot Noir alongside.

The conversion was philosophical as much as agricultural. At school, Ivan learned modern winemaking — and found that much of it did not resonate. He spent considerable time reading, studying, and contemplating organic viticulture and non-interventionist methods, finding inspiration in Ivan Enjingi, whom he considers a true legend. He began working organically in 2008 — extremely small yields, no artificial fertilizers, insecticides or herbicides, meticulous manual work. He built his cellar in 2010. And in 2011 came the vintage where everything he believed became wine: the Škrlet Selekcija, the first wine that completely happened his way — and the bottle that changed perceptions of the variety forever.

The Kosovec cellar operates on a single premise: winemaking based exclusively on the natural quality of the grapes, with respect for the terroir and the vintage. There is little to no intervention with grapes, must or wine — no added yeasts, no enzymes, no enological additives or preparations of any kind, no fining, no filtering, and sulfur reduced to the minimum. Fermentations are spontaneous; temperature is guided rather than forced; ageing happens in inox or wooden barrels depending on the wine. The philosophy has been unchanged since the first great vintage of 2011, and, Ivan says, will remain so as long as he runs the business — because for him it is the only right way to make wine.

The method that made the icon is worth recounting precisely, because Ivan tells it with an engineer's candour. For the 2011 Škrlet Selekcija, the grapes were picked at proper maturity — not too early, like most others in Moslavina chasing some stupid term like "freshness" to make cheap wine. Twenty percent of the fruit was destemmed and macerated for seven days in an open steel tank without temperature control, fermenting spontaneously on natural yeasts. After seven days the rest of the grapes were picked, pressed, and blended into the fermenting portion. Nothing was added except a bit of SO₂, and the wine was bottled after one year of ageing in steel. Four thousand bottles; a decade later, still drinking beautifully, with a Riesling-like petroleum nose and a complex mouthfeel.

The Selekcija line — the Selection — is where this philosophy reaches its fullest expression: longer macerations for the whites, longer ageing in wooden barrels for whites and reds alike, producing more complex wines with a decade or more of bottle-ageing potential. Higher natural acidity, deep minerality, food-friendly structure without excessive alcohol — these are wines built to evolve. And Ivan is refreshingly immune to the industry's vanity metrics: he doesn't care for medals or wine beauty pageants, because wine is not an exact science — it is personal feeling and preference, and there is no right or wrong answer. What he cares about is that the wine in the glass is alive.

Kosovec is not merely a winery; it is a rescue that succeeded — the story of an 18-year-old who bought a forested hilltop with a 170-year-old wooden house on it, and turned an ordinary, almost forgotten table grape into something extraordinary. In an era when Croatian wine was busy elsewhere — the coast, the courts, the medal circuit — Ivan Kosovec demonstrated that Moslavina's obscure indigenous white could stand among the finest white wines in the country, made the hardest way: by hand, without sprays, without additives, without filters. Thanks to his free spirit, he managed what no one had done before: he put Moslavina's Škrlet on the global wine map. The importers' description of him has become his defining title — the dark horse of Moslavina, the winemaker who never shied away from being different, nor sought the recognition of others.

The legacy of Kosovec is the legacy of conviction without theatre. Ivan is not a natural-wine personality: he is a first-generation professional who started from scratch — tractors, tools, everything; a student who rejected much of what oenology school taught him in favour of reading, study, and contemplation; a winemaker who found his inspiration in Ivan Enjingi and his method in his grandfather's 300 vines; a producer who dismisses medals and beauty pageants because wine is personal feeling, not exact science. He does not chase volume — 6,000 bottles of the estate Škrlet. He does not chase fashion — the philosophy has not changed since 2011 and won't while he runs the business. He makes Škrlet in three expressions, Chardonnay, and Selekcija reds that age a decade or more — true, live, terroir-driven wines that honestly reflect the character of their origins.

The future of the project is tied to the future of Škrlet itself — to the slow growth of those hundred world hectares, to the ten or so Moslavina wineries finding their way, and to the drinkers in New York, Stockholm, Singapore and Zagreb who now know the freckled grape by name. Twenty years after planting, Ivan's assessment of his region remains sober — small, poor, far from fancy — but his answer is unchanged: bring the wines to the world, not the other way around. As the Selekcija vintages deepen in cellars across three continents, as the Ovnek converts another drinker to amber Škrlet, and as the hilltop vineyard enters its third decade, Ivan Kosovec remains what he set out to be: a native son who trusted the hill, the grandfather's way, and the freckled grape, and proved that the only right way to make wine is the honest one. The dark horse doesn't seek attention. He earns it, bottle by bottle.