The Pandemic, the Blues & the Selca Hand

Ante Lacman has been the heart and soul of authentic Hvar tourism for more than two decades — a man who knows every hill, every vineyard, and every hidden corner of the island. But when the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill in 2020, Ante and his wife Marijana found themselves with time, land, and a dream. Their mission was simple: to ensure their family enjoyed healthy, high-quality wine — wine made without chemicals, without shortcuts, without compromise. What started as a personal project quickly blossomed into something far greater. As Ante and Marijana shared: "What started as a personal mission — to ensure our family enjoyed healthy, high-quality wine — has blossomed into a passion for sharing this experience with others."

The winery is a true family collaboration. Ante and Marijana lead the winemaking and hospitality, while their daughters help with the process and design the charming bottle labels — each label a unique artwork that reflects the personality of the wine inside. The family also grows organic vegetables and herbs in their garden, which are used in the tasting platters and three-course meals served to guests. "Mama Lina's" homemade jams and pestos are legendary among visitors, as are the homemade sausages and cured meats that accompany the wine tastings. This is not a commercial operation; it is a family home that happens to make exceptional wine.

The guiding philosophy is absolute and unwavering: natural wines made without chemicals, filtration, or artificial additives. The winery focuses on long maceration (7–8 months), producing wines that truly reflect the island's essence. The family uses only local resources and sustainable practices, ensuring high-quality, small-batch production. Grapes are hand-picked at the precise time of day to ensure they are not too warm, then carefully packed, stored, and handled to avoid any bruising. The wines are unfiltered and created without any artificial yeasts, foods to create yeast, or enzymes. All are allowed to ferment naturally, without adding heat or cold to the process. For the Lacmans, natural wine is not a trend; it is a return to the way wine was always meant to be made. This is not industrial winemaking; it is Dalmatian viticulture as family devotion.

The Lacman winemaking philosophy is rooted in absolute naturalness and ancestral patience. In the cellar — a modest space where tradition meets innovation — grapes are hand-picked at the precise time of day to ensure they are not too warm, then carefully packed, stored, and handled to avoid any bruising. The wines are unfiltered and created without any artificial yeasts, foods to create yeast, or enzymes. All are allowed to ferment naturally, without adding heat or cold to the process. Crafting wine this natural takes more time and requires only the highest quality grapes — but the result is wine that is as natural as it can be.

The defining technique is the qvevri — 500–600 litre clay vessels buried in the ground, lined with beeswax, and used for fermenting and ageing the wine. This ancient Georgian method, practiced for thousands of years, is rare in Europe but perfectly suited to the Lacman philosophy of minimal intervention. The Popola (Polpola) — the island's first orange wine — is made in terracotta amphorae buried in the ground from a blend of Bogdanuša and Maraština. The grapes macerate on their skins for 7–8 months, extracting phenolics, tannins, and a deep amber colour. The result is a wine of extraordinary depth and texture — aromatic, with hints of grapefruit and vanilla, combining the lightness of Bogdanuša from the Stari Grad Plain with the structure of Maraština from Hvar's south coast.

The reds are crafted with equal care. The Esenca — 100% Plavac Mali — undergoes 16 days of maceration on the pure juice that comes out naturally from the grapes. The Predobro — also 100% Plavac Mali — is an intense, rich, and structured wine with notes of sour cherry, violet, and garigue, with a long finish and retro-nasal aromas of plums and cherry. The whites range from the fresh Friška — a vibrant blend of Maraština, Pošip, and Bogdanuša — to the barrel-aged Dama Barrique. All wines are bottled with minimal sulphur and no filtration. The result is a portfolio of honest, living wines that develop and evolve in the bottle — wines that are as much about the journey as the destination.

Lacman Family Winery is not merely a winery; it is a dream born from crisis — the story of how Ante and Marijana Lacman, during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, turned a personal mission to make healthy wine for their family into Hvar Island's first all-natural winery, producing long-macerated qvevri wines that have captivated visitors from California to South Jordan. In an era when Croatian wine was defined by industrial scale, chemical dependence, and the homogenisation of flavour, the Lacman family demonstrated that the most profound wines sometimes come from a hillside hamlet on Hvar, fermented in buried clay qvevri with 7–8 months of skin contact, bottled without filtration or additives, and served with Mama Lina's homemade jams on a terrace overlooking Stari Grad Bay. It is largely thanks to projects like Lacman that natural wine, qvevri ageing, and the indigenous varieties of Hvar — Bogdanuša, Maraština, and Pošip — now have a place in the global natural wine conversation. The same hamlet that tourists pass on their way to Hvar Town has become, through their work, a source of some of the most honest, joyful, and terroir-driven wines in Dalmatia.

The legacy of Lacman is the legacy of the family hand in Dalmatian viticulture. Ante is not a typical winery founder: he is a man who spent two decades in Hvar tourism before building a winery during a pandemic, who buries 500–600 litre clay qvevri in the ground, who macerates his orange wines for 7–8 months, who makes the island's first orange wine from Bogdanuša and Maraština, who hosts live blues concerts every Tuesday, who grows organic vegetables in his garden for tasting platters, and who believes that the best wine is the one that is as natural as it can be. He does not chase volume. He does not chase trends. He makes wines with names like Popola, Težok, Esenca, and Predobro — each one a story, each one a family collaboration, each one a reflection of the karst soil and Adriatic sun — and he makes them with the same love and patience that defined his pandemic project. The zero additives are not a marketing claim; they are a way of life that allows the wine to speak without masking its Hvar soul.

The future of the project is tied to the future of natural viticulture and qvevri winemaking on the karst slopes of Hvar — to the growing recognition that the best wines come not from the biggest cellars but from the most committed guardians of ancient tradition, family values, and the blues. As the Popola continues to set the benchmark for orange wine on Hvar, as the Esenca proves that Plavac Mali can be both powerful and natural, and as the Blues & Wine nights bring a new generation of music and wine lovers to Selca, the Lacman family remains what they have always intended to be: a family who shares their passion with every guest — a man and a woman who trusted the qvevri, the indigenous grapes, and the blues, and who built something enduring on a hillside above Stari Grad Bay. The dream is not finished. It is just beginning to age.