The Wine Bar, the Wormhole & the Primošten Hand

Marko Pavlak is not a typical winemaker. He is a wine bar owner, a natural wine evangelist, a guide, and a vigneron — a man who has spent years traversing the wine regions of Croatia, Pelješac, Korčula, and beyond, rooting out the tiniest producers, the most sincere expressions, and the most authentic bottles. His wine bar Peškafondo in Primošten is not just a place to drink; it is a temple of conviction — a space where conventional and natural wines from a handful of countries coexist, but where the definition of natural wine at the top of the list reads like a challenge to the status quo.

Marko's journey into wine is one of conversion and discovery. He has guided tours through Pelješac and Korčula, opening doors at wineries that most tourists never find. He has tasted wines that have opened wormholes in his own understanding of what a grape can be. And he has developed a philosophy that is characteristically irreverent: he leaves open bottles on the counter for a week as he samples them, believing that "full oxidation, complete contact with the air" often rounds out the edges. He is fine with the less comfortable textures and flavours of natural wine — the funk, the volatility, the living unpredictability. For Marko, these are not flaws; they are signatures of sincerity.

The Morlak project emerged from this conviction. Working with Ivan Dragičević of Divina Vina in Split, Marko set out to make a Pošip that would challenge everything the world thought it knew about the grape. They sourced grapes from Korčula — the island where Pošip has been cultivated for centuries — and fermented them in 500-litre barrels with 20 days of skin contact, zero sulfites, and no malolactic fermentation. The result was not a clean, fresh, conventional white. It was an amber, tannic, resiny, wildflower-laden wine that tasted like no Pošip anyone had ever encountered. This is not industrial winemaking; it is Dalmatian viticulture as evangelism.

Marko Pavlak's winemaking philosophy is rooted in absolute minimal intervention, irreverent experimentation, and the belief that the most important thing in a wine is its energy. In the cellar at Divina Vina, grapes from Korčula are fermented in 500-litre barrels with approximately 20 days of skin contact — an extended maceration that extracts phenolics, tannins, and colour from the Pošip skins, transforming the wine from a conventional white into an amber, textured, tannic expression that challenges every preconception about the variety.

The defining feature of Morlak is zero sulfites — no added sulfites in the vineyard, no added sulfites in the winery. This is not a marketing claim; it is a philosophical commitment to allowing the wine to express itself without chemical intervention. There is also no malolactic fermentation — the wine retains its natural acidity and freshness, balanced by the tannins and texture from the skin contact. The result is a wine that is alive, evolving, and unpredictable — a wine that changes in the glass, in the bottle, and in the memory of the drinker.

Marko's approach to tasting is equally unconventional. He leaves open bottles on the counter for a week as he samples them, believing that full oxidation and complete contact with the air often rounds out the edges and reveals the wine's true character. He is fine with funk, with volatility, with the less comfortable textures that natural wine can present. "The most important thing is the energy that is in the wines," he says — a statement that captures the essence of his philosophy. For Marko, wine is not a product to be perfected; it is a living expression of place, personality, and time. The result is a portfolio that is small but profound — wines that leave no one indifferent.

Morlak is not merely a wine; it is a manifesto in a bottle — the story of how a wine bar owner in Primošten, after years of guiding tours through Pelješac and Korčula and rooting out the tiniest producers in Croatia, decided to make his own wine — a zero-sulfite, skin-contact Pošip that opens a wormhole in the understanding of one of Dalmatia's most important grapes. In an era when Croatian wine was defined by convention, freshness, and the homogenisation of flavour, Marko Pavlak demonstrated that the most profound wines sometimes come from 500-litre barrels in Split, fermented with 20 days of skin contact, zero sulfites, and no malolactic fermentation — bottled not as a product but as an expression of energy. It is largely thanks to projects like Morlak that skin-contact Pošip, zero-sulfite Dalmatian wine, and the concept of wine as energy rather than perfection now have a place in the global natural wine conversation. The same wine bar that tourists pass on their way to Primošten's old town has become, through his work, a source of one of the most radical, most sincere, and most unforgettable wines in Croatia.

The legacy of Morlak is the legacy of the irreverent hand in Dalmatian viticulture. Marko is not a typical winemaker: he is a wine bar owner who leaves bottles open on the counter for a week, who believes that full oxidation rounds out the edges, who is fine with funk and volatility, who has rooted out tiny producers that bottle wines just for him, who defines natural wine as a sincere winemaking with minimum intervention and maximum personality, and who believes that the most important thing is the energy in the wines. He does not chase volume. He does not chase trends. He makes wines that leave no one indifferent — wines that challenge, provoke, and convert — and he makes them with the same conviction that defines his wine bar, his tours, and his irreverent philosophy. The zero sulfites are not a compromise; they are a declaration of independence from the chemical conventions of modern winemaking.

The future of the project is tied to the future of zero-sulfite, skin-contact winemaking in Dalmatia — to the growing recognition that the best wines come not from the biggest cellars but from the most committed guardians of energy, sincerity, and irreverence. As the Morlak Pošip continues to challenge the understanding of what Pošip can be, as Peškafondo brings a new generation of wine lovers to Primošten, and as Marko's evangelism spreads through Croatia and beyond, he remains what he has always intended to be: a man who creates wine that leaves no one indifferent — a wine bar owner who trusted the Korčula sun, the 500-litre barrel, and the zero-sulfite philosophy, and who built something enduring on an almost-island in northern Dalmatia. The dream is not finished. It is just beginning to age.