The Math Teacher, the Matriarch & the Stone Lace
Marinov Winery is one of the purest family wine stories in Dalmatia — the life's work of Neno Marinov, a math teacher at the elementary school in Primošten who is also a renowned natural winemaker, and of the family matriarch Josipa Marinov, who knows the riches and the pains of the Primošten land better than anyone — and who, at 82 years old, you will still find working in the field. Years ago, the family bought land in the Bucavac appellation — the most famous vineyard site in Primošten, a UNESCO-protected stone amphitheatre where dry-stone walls cascade like lace down to the turquoise Adriatic — and planted the autochthonous grape that grows only in the Šibenik region: Babić. The terrain is extremely rocky, barely accessible, covered in small non-terraced lots separated by ancient dry-stone walls, just a few metres above the sea — a grid of stone where no machine can pass and every task is done by hand. Due to the abundance of sunlight and wind, the vineyards, as Neno says, simply do not need to be treated with anything during most years. In the cellar, they follow neither organic nor biodynamic doctrine but the traditional way of production, as their ancestors did — with some improvements: no added yeast, no sulphur, just the pure character of the land. Production is 3,000 to 5,000 litres a year of a Babić that is especially fruity, fresh and mineral — wine the family once sold in plastic bottles on the side of the road, until Krešo Petreković discovered them and made Neno a founding partner of Vinas Mora. Today, Marinov's sincere Babić is sought after both within and outside Croatia — the humble roadside bottles having become some of the most honest wines in the natural wine world.
The Chalkboard, the Field & the Elders' Way
Neno Marinov lives two lives in one small town. By day, he is a math teacher at the elementary school in Primošten — a man of precision, patience, and quiet explanation. The rest of the time, he is a renowned natural winemaker, cultivating his family vineyards together with Josipa, the family matriarch who knows the riches and the pains of the Primošten land best. It is a truly impressive and humbling experience, as the importers at Nesputana Vina write, to watch work unfold on such a demanding, rocky terroir — and to find Josipa, at 82 years old, still in the field doing it.
Years ago, the family bought land in the Bucavac appellation — the legendary vineyard site above Primošten whose web of dry-stone walls cascading toward the sea has made it a symbol of the entire region — and planted Babić, the autochthonous grape of the Šibenik region. The Marinovs began working the vineyard the same way their elders taught them — "with some improvements," as they modestly put it. No sulphur. No added yeast. Just the pure character of the land. The wine they made was humble in packaging if not in quality: the family sold it in plastic bottles on the side of the road, to locals and passersby who knew a good thing when they tasted it.
The turning point came when Krešo Petreković — a Croatian-born sommelier and natural wine importer returned from New York — went looking for exactly this kind of wine: made by local farmers with little or no commercial success, honest to the bone. He found the Marinovs, tasted Babić made "as their elders did 100 years ago, with some improvements," and recognised both the quality and the fragility of what they had. Together with Neno, he explored the nearly abandoned facilities of the local cooperative — and in 2020, with wine professional Niko Dukan, the three founded Vinas Mora to rescue it. But the Marinov family's own cellar never stopped: their sincere Babić, now properly bottled and bearing the family name, is today sought after both within and outside Croatia.
"No sulfur, no added yeast, just the pure character of the land. Today, Marinov's sincere Babić wines are sought after both within and outside of Croatia."
— Grapeston, on Marinov Winery
Bucavac, the Stone Lace & the Kneeling Hand
The Marinov vineyards are located in several sites around Primošten, and the most impressive is certainly the UNESCO-protected vineyard position of Bucavac — a few metres above sea level, on a mixture of karst and crvenica, the iron-rich terra rossa formed by the dissolution of limestone and dolomite. Bucavac looks as if it were sculpted by hand — because it was. Stones had to be dug out just to make room for a vine; those stones could not be thrown away, so they were stacked into the walls that now define the landscape. The result is a stone amphitheatre laced with dry-stone walls — the famous "stone lace" of Primošten — and one of the most breathtaking vineyard locations in the world.
The viticulture here is extreme in the most literal sense. The terrain is covered in small, non-terraced lots home to prized, bush-trained Babić vines — traditionally planted in dry-stone pools of just three to four plants. No machine can pass the ancient vlačice and tirade — the traditional stone paths and passageways where tractors simply do not fit. Everything that grows, grows thanks to bloody effort, an understanding of the terrain, and harmony with nature. The vines rarely grow taller than 50 centimetres; local winemakers say you must kneel before them four or five times a year — as if before something sacred. Yields are brutally low: often just two or three clusters per vine. Young Babić vines on Bucavac need more than ten years to reach their full potential — time moves slower here, and the land tests every vine.
And yet, this brutality is also a kind of grace. Summers bring scorching heat; winters bring winds strong enough to break vines — which is why taller stone walls were built to protect the low bush vines. Little rain, plenty of sun and wind: ideal conditions for healthy vines without disease. Due to the abundance of sunlight and wind, the vineyards, as Neno says, simply do not need to be treated with anything during most years. It is precisely this unique Primošten terroir — the stone, the salt, the wind, the crvenica's rare ability to hold water through the dry summer — that gives the Marinov Babić its especially fruity, fresh, and mineral character.
Bucavac is the most renowned vineyard site in Primošten — a UNESCO-protected amphitheatre of dry-stone walls cascading like stone lace down to the turquoise Adriatic, a few metres above sea level. Everything you see was built by human hands alone: stones dug out to make room for vines, then stacked into walls that define the landscape. It is a living monument to human effort, shaped over generations — and the source of the Marinov family's most prized Babić. Babić from Bucavac is often twice as expensive as from other sites; when you set foot on that land, you know why.
Babić is traditionally planted here in dry-stone pools of just three to four plants, scattered across small, non-terraced lots separated by ancient walls. The vlačice and tirade — traditional stone paths and passageways — admit no tractors. All work is done by hand: pruning, tending, harvesting. The bush vines rarely exceed 50 centimetres in height, and the locals say you must kneel before them four or five times a year. This is viticulture at the scale of the human body — intimate, exhausting, and impossible to industrialise.
The vineyards sit on a mixture of karst and crvenica — terra rossa — typical of the Mediterranean karst: hard ground with very little humus, formed by the dissolution of limestone and dolomite into a clayey, mildly structured residue. Despite its challenging nature, crvenica is adept at retaining water — crucial for grape survival during the long, dry Mediterranean summers. Roots dig deep through limestone in search of scarce water and nutrients, and from this struggle the vines draw minerality, depth, and an earthy character that cannot be faked.
The Primošten coast offers little rain, abundant sun, and constant wind — a combination that keeps fungal disease pressure so low that, as Neno says, the vineyards simply do not need to be treated with anything during most years. Winters bring winds strong enough to break vines, answered by taller protective stone walls; summers bring scorching heat, answered by the bush-vine form and the crvenica's water reserve. The result is organic farming not by certificate but by geography — the land itself does the protecting.
The Ancestors' Way, Some Improvements & the Sincere Hand
In the cellar, the Marinovs do not follow organic or biodynamic principles as doctrine — they follow something older: the traditional way of wine production, as their ancestors did, which in today's terms means minimal intervention. The formula is the one their elders handed down: healthy grapes from an untreated vineyard, spontaneous fermentation on indigenous yeasts, no additives, no corrections. No sulphur, no added yeast — just the pure character of the land. The "improvements" are subtle: the precision of a math teacher applied to hygiene, timing, and the quiet decisions that keep a wine stable without sulphur.
The flagship Babić shows the approach at work. After hand-harvest, the grapes macerate for six days — long enough to draw Babić's dark fruit and gentle structure, short enough to keep the wine's freshness — and the wine is then aged for nine months in stainless steel, a deliberately neutral vessel that lets the Bucavac terroir speak unadorned. The result, at 13% alcohol, is an elegant food-pairing wine: herbs on the nose paired with dark fruits, a palate of smooth tannins and nice acidity, dark fruit along with hints of earth. Bottled with minimal sulphur at most, unfined and unfiltered, it carries a clarity of purpose that belies its humble origins.
What distinguishes the Marinov cellar is sincerity — the word that follows their wines from importer to importer. This is a family that made wine for themselves and their neighbours for generations, selling it in plastic bottles by the roadside, and who changed almost nothing when the world finally noticed. The same hands, the same vineyards, the same methods — only the audience has grown. Their discovery by Krešo Petreković and Neno's role as a founding partner of Vinas Mora has put Primošten Babić on tables from New York to Tokyo; the Marinov family's own bottlings remain what they always were: wine that speaks more of the soil than of the cellar.
The Elders' Covenant & the Teacher's Precision
The guiding principle of the Marinov cellar is that the old way, done well, needs no new name. Untreated vineyards, indigenous yeasts, no sulphur, no additions — not as ideology but as inheritance: the way their ancestors made wine, refined only by "some improvements" — a math teacher's precision in timing, hygiene, and restraint. Six days of maceration for the Babić, nine months in neutral stainless steel, minimal intervention throughout. The wine is not engineered toward a style; it is guided toward honesty. Fruity, fresh, mineral — the signature of Bucavac's stone and wind, carried from a family field to the world's natural wine bars without changing its accent. This is the elders' way, kept alive by hands that still work the stone lace at 82 years old.
One Grape, One Family & the Bucavac Hand
The Marinov portfolio is deliberately singular: Babić, the little black giant of the Šibenik region, from family plots in Bucavac and around Primošten. Total production is 3,000 to 5,000 litres a year — quantities dictated by stone, wind, and two or three clusters per vine, not by the market. All wines are made the elders' way: hand-harvested, spontaneously fermented, unfined, unfiltered, with no added yeast and no sulphur beyond the barest minimum.
The Roadside Bottles, the Rescue & the Elders' Hand
Marinov Winery is not merely an estate; it is a living bridge — the story of a math teacher and an 82-year-old matriarch who kept making wine the way their elders did a century ago, in plastic bottles by the roadside, until the world came looking for exactly that kind of honesty. In an era when natural wine is often a constructed aesthetic, the Marinovs represent the real thing: a family for whom untreated vineyards, indigenous yeasts, and zero additions are not a movement but a memory — simply the way wine has always been made on their piece of stone. It is no coincidence that when Krešo Petreković went searching for the soul of Primošten, he found it in their cellar; and no coincidence that Neno Marinov became a founding partner of Vinas Mora, the cooperative that rescued the town's abandoned winemaking facilities. The family that once sold Babić in plastic bottles has become, without changing its methods, one of the reference points of Croatian natural wine.
The legacy of Marinov is the legacy of the elders' hand in Dalmatian viticulture. Neno is not a typical winemaker: he is a teacher who explains the world in a classroom by day and reads it in the stone pools of Bucavac the rest of the time; Josipa is not a typical vineyard worker: she is an 82-year-old who still knows the riches and the pains of the Primošten land from the inside, and still shows up to the field. They do not chase volume. They do not chase fashion. They make 3,000 to 5,000 litres a year of one wine — Babić, fruity, fresh, mineral, sincere — from vines that yield two or three clusters and demand to be knelt before four or five times a year. The "improvements" they allow themselves are invisible: the rest is stone, sun, wind, and time.
The future of the project is tied to the future of Bucavac itself — to the survival of a UNESCO-protected landscape that can only be farmed by people willing to work as the Marinovs work, and to the new audience their wines have found far beyond the roadside. As the sincere Babić travels to natural wine bars across Europe and America, as Vinas Mora carries the Primošten name further still, and as the stone lace of Bucavac continues to hold its vines a few metres above the sea, the Marinov family remains what it has always been: teachers and students of the same land — a family that trusted the elders, the stone, and the wind, and never needed anything more. The tradition was never lost. It is just beginning to be tasted.
"As their elders did 100 years ago, with some improvements."
— The Marinov family's description of their winemaking