The Cistern, the Franco-Croatian & the Buzet Hand

Dimitri Brečević was born in Jurançon — a small town in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, famous for its white wines. His mother is French, from this very wine region. His father is Istrian, from the hilltop town of Buzet. Wine was not a career choice for Dimitri; it was in his blood from both sides of the family. After graduating with a degree in oenology from Bordeaux in 2002, he embarked on a global apprenticeship that would shape his palate and his philosophy: Domaine de Chevalier in Bordeaux, Canterbury House Winery in New Zealand, harvests in Australia and Burgundy. He tasted terroirs from the gravel of Graves to the limestone of Meursault, from the volcanic soils of Central Otago to the ancient clay of the Barossa.

In 2004, Dimitri made a decision that would reshape his life and the landscape of Istrian wine: he would invest himself in his father's homeland. He arrived in Buzet — a town with a history stretching back to the Romans, the Goths, the Franks, the Bavarians, and five centuries of Venetian rule — and began building his winery from the ground up. In 2006, he founded Piquentum — the Latin name for Buzet — and released his first vintage. The name was not just a nod to antiquity; it was a declaration of intent: to reconnect the modern Istrian wine scene with the deep historical roots of the peninsula. The winery itself was housed in an old Italian water cistern built in the 1920s — a Mussolini-era concrete bunker buried beneath a forested hill, later converted into a war shelter in the early 1990s and now, improbably, a winery.

The guiding philosophy is deeply personal and profoundly French in its intellectual rigour: "You have to try to understand the grapes, the terroirs and the consumer, and to find the truth. I want to discover the character of this land." Dimitri believes in wines that need more time — wines that are able to develop nice secondary and tertiary aromas rather than being rushed to market as fresh, simple juice. He is considered one of the few true "natural" vignerons in the Istrian peninsula — not because he follows a movement, but because his winemaking is characterised by minimal intervention as a matter of conviction. This is not industrial winemaking; it is Istrian viticulture as a Franco-Croatian dialogue.

Dimitri Brečević's winemaking philosophy is rooted in minimal intervention, native fermentation, and the belief that time is the best cellar master. In the cellar — the converted Mussolini cistern — grapes are hand-picked and slowly pressed into concrete tanks without temperature control. The natural insulation of the cistern keeps the temperature at a constant 10–11°C, which is ideal for ageing but too cold for spontaneous fermentation. Dimitri uses fans to draw in warmer outside air, raising the temperature to around 14°C — just enough to allow the native yeasts to awaken and begin their slow, natural work. No added yeast. No bacteria. No enzymes. No additives of any kind.

The white wines — led by Malvasia — undergo 3–4 days of skin contact in open vats before being transferred to a mix of 70% barrel and 30% stainless steel. This brief maceration extracts phenolics and texture without overwhelming the grape's delicate aromatics. The skin contact magnifies the saline, mineral character of the wine without losing the freshness and acidity that define high-altitude Istrian Malvasia. The result is a bright gold colour — not the faded oxidative tone of over-macerated wines, but a luminous, living gold that speaks of the vineyard. The reds — Teran and Refošk — ferment with native yeasts and complete malolactic fermentation naturally, developing their signature iron-rich, sanguine character.

All wines are bottled unfiltered with just enough sulphur to ensure a safe journey from the cistern to the table. Dimitri does not believe in forcing the wine. He does not cold-soak. He does not add sugar. He does not fine. He lets the fermentation proceed at its own pace — long and slow — and trusts that the wine will find its own equilibrium. The result is a portfolio of honest, time-needing wines that develop beautiful secondary and tertiary aromas with age. As Dimitri says, you have to try to understand the grapes, the terroirs, and the consumer — and in that triangulation, find the truth. This is not industrial winemaking; it is Istrian viticulture as philosophical inquiry.

Piquentum is not merely a winery; it is a dialogue realised — the story of how a Franco-Croatian winemaker, born in the Pyrenees and trained in Bordeaux, returned to his father's hilltop town to build a natural wine estate inside a Mussolini-era water cistern buried beneath a forested hill. In an era when Croatian wine was defined by industrial scale, chemical dependence, and the homogenisation of flavour, Dimitri Brečević demonstrated that the most profound wines sometimes come from 4.5 hectares of flysch and karst at 350 metres above sea level, fermented with native yeasts in a concrete bunker, aged without additives, and bottled unfiltered with minimal sulphur. It is largely thanks to projects like Piquentum that natural Malvasia, iron-rich Teran, and the concept of time-needing Istrian wine now have a place in the global natural wine conversation. The same town that the Romans called Piquentum has become, through his work, a source of some of the most honest, patient, and terroir-driven wines in Croatia.

The legacy of Piquentum is the legacy of the inquisitive hand in Croatian viticulture. Dimitri is not a typical winery founder: he is a French-born, Bordeaux-trained winemaker who worked in New Zealand and Australia before returning to his father's homeland, who built a winery inside a 1920s Italian water cistern converted into a war shelter, who uses fans to warm his cellar enough for native fermentation, who believes that wine needs time to develop secondary and tertiary aromas, and who wants to discover the character of this land rather than impose his own. He does not chase volume. He does not chase trends. He makes wines that express the typical aromas of Istrian Malvasia, Teran, Refošk, and Rosé — but in a completely sincere way — and he makes them with the same intellectual rigour that defined his training in Bordeaux. The minimal sulphur is not a compromise; it is a practical minimum that allows the wine to travel without masking its Buzet soul.

The future of the project is tied to the future of natural viticulture and minimal-intervention winemaking on the flysch and karst of northern Istria — to the growing recognition that the best wines come not from the biggest cellars but from the most committed guardians of white soil, red soil, and ancient concrete. As the Malvasia continues to set the benchmark for skin-contact white wine in the Buzet area, as the Teran proves that low-alcohol, high-acid reds can be both medicinal and delicious, and as the Refošk demonstrates the depth of the Refosco family in Istrian karst, Dimitri Brečević remains what he has always intended to be: a man who tries to understand the grapes, the terroirs, and the consumer — a Franco-Croatian son who trusted the cistern, the native yeast, and the Bura wind, and who built something enduring beneath a forested hill. The dream is not finished. It is just beginning to age.