Bire Winery - Wine Tales of Korčula & Pelješac
Grk is a native grape variety cultivated on the sandy soils of Lumbarda on the island of Korčula where it grows [and ripens] at its best.
Some think that it was brought to Korčula by the ancient Greeks around 500 BC, while others believe that it was named for the pleasant tart finish of the wine (grk is the Croatian for tart or bitter). The vine is noted for its dense upright shoots and its strong trunk. The grapes ripen at the end of August and the beginning of September. The harvest yield is very variable because the flowers are functionally all feminine and their fertilization is irregular: to encourage fertilization, some other grape variety which blossoms at the same time is always grown nearby. In Lumbarda that is usually Plavac Mali.
Grk grapes grown in Lumbarda produce high quality dry wine, and the late harvest is particularly suitable for predicate and desert wines.
Frano Milina-Bire started the cultivation of autochthonous white sort grk and for the first time after 100 years renewed traditional terrace wineyards in that region. His wineyard is at the same time the first ecologic one on the island of Korčula.
