The Path for Water & the Gifted Island
Merga Victa — "path for water" in old Dalmatian — is the name local people gave to the freshwater ponds in the centre of Korčula island that feed the vineyards of Smokvica, the birthplace of Pošip. It is also the flagship wine of Black Island Winery, opened in 2018 on the site of the once-famous Agricultural Cooperative Jedinstvo — the very place where the first Pošip was created. The winery takes its name from the ancient Greek Korkyra Melaina, Latin Corcyra Nigra — Black Korčula — a nod to the island's lush Mediterranean vegetation; today Korčula is known as the black island of white wines, and Smokvica is its beating heart. Here, on terraced fields carved out of rocky hillsides and fed by stream water, local people have planted indigenous varieties for generations, and today's winemakers still do most of their work by hand, just like their ancestors. The rich reddish-brown soil, the freshwater ponds, and a climate of more than 2,800 hours of sunshine a year make this the perfect place for growing wine. The gifted hands belong to Igor Radovanović — one of Croatia's leading winemakers — and enologist Nikola Mirošević, who craft the Merga Victa range: the classic Pošip, the Na Talogu sur lie expression aged 24 months on lees in oak, a Plavac red, and the extraordinary Coral Wine — Pošip submerged for eight months at 20 metres depth in the Adriatic, each bottle emerging encrusted in coral. In 2026, both Merga Victa and Merga Victa Na Talogu won gold at the International Wine Challenge — proof, as Zhoda's CEO put it, that Black Island operates at the very highest international level. This is the gifted wine from the gifted island.
Caparin's Wild Vine, the Jedinstvo Cellar & the Black Island
Every grape variety has a creation myth, and Pošip's is better than most. In 1880, a Smokvica farmer named Marin Tomašić, nicknamed Caparin, spotted a wild grapevine growing in the forest. He was immediately drawn to its fruity aroma and exquisite, intense flavour, and decided to plant it in his own vineyard. Aware that he had stumbled across an exceptional gift of nature, Tomašić generously shared the secret with his friends and neighbours — and from that single act of generosity, an entire island's wine culture grew. In 1967, Pošip became the first white wine variety in Croatia with a protected geographic label. The only true Pošip, as the people of Korčula will tell you, is a Pošip from Korčula.
For generations, that wine was made collectively — most famously at the Agricultural Cooperative Jedinstvo in Smokvica, the place where the very first Pošip was created. When Black Island Winery opened its doors in 2018 at that same historic site, the former cooperative was transformed into an unavoidable wine destination, and a new stage in the production of indigenous Pošip began — with the explicit aim of returning Korčula's great white grape to the world's top wines list. The winery, owned by Sweden's Zhoda Investments alongside its sister estate Testament Winery, pairs international ambition with deeply local roots.
The name Merga Victa ties the wine to its landscape: in the centre of the island, the freshwater ponds that feed the vineyards of Smokvica are a remarkable gift of nature, and local people call this place Merga Victa — path for water in old Dalmatian. The winemakers are two of Croatia's most respected hands: Igor Radovanović, who leads the winery, and enologist Nikola Mirošević. Their stated wish is simple: to create authentic wine and to make people feel awarded while sipping it — every drop a celebration of Korčula's bountiful nature. Here's to the gifted island and its nature.
"The gold medals for Merga Victa are a tremendous recognition of the Dalmatian grape variety Pošip. They show that our winemaker Igor Radovanović and Black Island Winery are operating at the very highest international level."
— Robert Karlsson, CEO Zhoda Investments, on the IWC 2026 double gold
Smokvica, the Freshwater Ponds & the Terraced Hand
Korčula is one of the great wine islands of the Mediterranean — the ancient Greeks called it Korkyra Melaina, Black Korčula, for its dense cloak of Aleppo pine, cypress and Mediterranean scrub. But in wine terms the nickname has been turned on its head: Korčula is famous as the black island of white wines, an island whose reputation rests on indigenous white varieties — Pošip, Rukatac (Maraština) and Grk — with Plavac Mali flying the red flag. At the island's centre, ringed by hills, lies Smokvica: the birthplace of Pošip and the home of Black Island Winery.
The vineyards lie on the outskirts of Smokvica, on terraced fields carved out of rocky hillsides over generations. The work here has always been done by hand — local people planted the indigenous varieties on these stony terraces, and today's winemakers continue the tradition, with most vineyard actions done manually, just like their ancestors. The soils are a rich reddish-brown earth over the island's limestone base — fertile enough to give Pošip its characteristic generosity, stony enough to keep it honest. The grapes for Merga Victa come from older vineyards in the traditionally best locations for Pošip cultivation.
What makes Smokvica unique among Dalmatian wine villages is water. In a region defined by drought, the centre of Korčula hides freshwater ponds and streams — the Merga Victa, the path for water — that feed the vineyards and temper the island heat. Add a climate of more than 2,800 hours of sunshine a year, the cooling breath of the surrounding channels, and a long, even ripening season, and you have the ingredients of Pošip's signature: ripe white and tropical fruit carried on fine freshness and pronounced minerality. This is the gifted island's gift to its favourite grape.
Smokvica, at the centre of Korčula, is where Pošip was born — where Caparin's wild forest vine of 1880 became the island's defining variety, and where the first Pošip was made at the Jedinstvo cooperative. It remains the variety's reference point: the village's name is synonymous with the grape, and the traditionally best Pošip locations lie on its outskirts. Black Island Winery's home here is not an accident of real estate; it is a deliberate anchoring of the project in the variety's genetic and cultural homeland.
In the centre of the island, freshwater ponds feed the vineyards of Smokvica — a remarkable gift of nature in a region of dry karst. Local people call this place Merga Victa, "path for water" in old Dalmatian. Water is the hidden variable in Smokvica's terroir: streams and ponds that keep the terraced vineyards alive through 2,800 hours of annual sunshine, and that give the wines their balance of ripeness and freshness. The wine is named for the water that makes it possible.
The vineyards occupy terraced fields carved out of rocky hillsides, planted by local people with indigenous varieties and worked by hand to this day. Most actions in the vineyard — pruning, canopy work, harvest — are done manually, just as the ancestors did. The older vineyards in the traditionally best locations give fruit of concentration and character: the raw material for a Pošip of golden colour, density, and pronounced minerality. On Korčula, mechanisation was never really an option — and at Black Island, it was never a desire.
Korčula's ancient name — Corcyra Nigra, Black Korčula — came from its lush, dark vegetation; its modern reputation is the opposite: an island of white wines. Pošip from Smokvica and Čara, Grk from Lumbarda's sandy soils, Rukatac from across the island. Black Island Winery leans into the paradox, working the full palette of Korčula's indigenous varieties — Pošip, Rukatac, Grk, and Plavac Mali for red — from a cellar that stands where the island's cooperative winemaking history was written.
Night Harvests, Fine Lees & the Underwater Cellar
In the cellar, Igor Radovanović and Nikola Mirošević practice a philosophy of precision in service of authenticity — modern technique deployed to let an ancient variety speak clearly. The grapes for Merga Victa come from older vineyards in the traditionally best Pošip locations, harvested by hand at night in late August to preserve freshness and aroma, then cooled and selected. The fruit is crushed with minimal pressure, macerated for several hours, and pressed gently. Fermentation runs three to four weeks in stainless steel under strict temperature control at 15°C — long, cool, and slow — followed by months of fine-lees stirring to build texture and depth.
The range explores Pošip through different lenses of time. The classic Merga Victa Pošip rests two additional months on fine lees after fermentation — golden yellow, crystal clear, dense, dominated by fresh citrus, stone fruit, yellow flowers and Mediterranean herbs. The Merga Victa Na Talogu ("on the lees") takes the opposite road of patience: 24 months of sur lie ageing in oak barrels, emerging deep brass in colour, filled with quince paste, honey, cooked lime and beeswax — a wine the IWC judges called quite individual and special. And the Dalmatian Dog line, harvested selectively in the early morning, offers the grape in its most immediate, joyful register.
Then there is the experiment that made the wine famous far beyond Korčula: Coral Wine. After its cellar ageing, the Merga Victa Pošip is submerged in the Adriatic Sea at a depth of around 20 metres for eight months — part of the Adriatic's first and only underwater wine cellar, where wines age in cages on the seabed at 25 to 45 metres, on a mussel and oyster farm whose water quality is monitored weekly by the Croatian government. The sea's current, pressure and constant cool temperature soften tannins and acids while preserving the authentic aromatic profile; the stone fruit and acidity integrate with a new elegance. And each bottle returns from the deep encrusted in coral, algae and sea organisms — a unique work of art, sea-wine in the most literal sense.
The Night-Harvest Covenant & the Sea's Finishing Hand
The guiding principle of the Black Island cellar is that great Pošip is made twice — once by hand, once by time. Hand-harvested at night from old vines in the best Smokvica locations; crushed with minimal pressure; fermented long and cool in steel at 15°C; raised on fine lees for months — or, for the Na Talogu, two full years in oak. Then, for the Coral Wine, a second creation begins: eight months at 20 metres beneath the Adriatic, where pressure, current and darkness soften and integrate what the cellar built, and where the sea signs every bottle in coral. From Caparin's wild vine to an underwater cellar, the story of Pošip has always been one of gifts — of nature, of generosity, of patience. Merga Victa simply accepts them all.
Pošip, Na Talogu, Coral & the Golden Hand
The Merga Victa range is a study of Pošip across time and element — from the fresh classic to the two-year lees-aged Na Talogu to the sea-aged Coral Wine — rounded out by the Dalmatian Dog line and a Plavac Mali red. International recognition has followed every step: IWC silver and Decanter bronze for the 2018, Decanter silver for the 2019, and in 2026 gold at the International Wine Challenge for both Merga Victa and Merga Victa Na Talogu.
Caparin's Gift, the Co-op Reborn & the Golden Hand
Merga Victa is not merely a wine; it is a restoration — the story of how a farmer's wild forest vine, shared generously with his neighbours in 1880, became Croatia's first protected white variety, fed a village cooperative for generations, and found, in 2018, a new stage in the very cellar where the first Pošip was made. In an era when Dalmatian wine often looks backward to nostalgia or outward to imitation, Black Island Winery demonstrates a third path: honour the birthplace, invest in the craft, and aim unapologetically for the world's top wines list. The double gold at the International Wine Challenge 2026 — for both the classic Merga Victa and the Na Talogu — suggests the aim is being met. It is largely thanks to projects like this that Pošip is reclaiming its place among the great Mediterranean white varieties.
The legacy of Merga Victa is the legacy of the gifted island, bottled. The formula joins opposites that rarely meet: a Swedish investment company and a Smokvica cooperative cellar; two of Croatia's leading winemakers and vineyard work done by hand as the ancestors did; the most modern precision — night harvests, cooling, 15°C fermentations — and the most ancient patience — two years on lees, eight months under the sea. They do not chase volume. They chase recognition for a place and a grape: Smokvica, the path for water, the black island of white wines. And with the Coral Wine, they have given Pošip something no variety anywhere can claim in quite the same way — a signature written by the sea itself, in coral, on every bottle.
The future of the project is tied to the future of Korčula's indigenous palette — to the old Pošip vineyards of Smokvica, to the Grk of Lumbarda and the Rukatac and Plavac that share the island's tables, and to the visitors who find their way to the tasting room for the Flavours of Korčula. As the classic Merga Victa carries the island's name to Systembolaget shelves and IWC juries, as the Na Talogu ages into its two-year depth, and as new bottles sink each year into the Adriatic to be signed by the coral, Black Island Winery remains what it set out to be: a celebration of the gifted island and its nature — a winery that trusted the birthplace, the hand-worked terraces, and the path for water, and returned a great grape to the world's list. The gift was given in 1880. It is just beginning to be fully unwrapped.
"Let's drink to Nature and the gifted winemakers Igor Radovanović and Nikola Mirošević, who created this Pošip wine for you to enjoy. Merga Victa, the gifted wine from the gifted island."
— Adriatic Wines, on Merga Victa