Tomac
The Plešivica wine region is about a 30-minute drive southwest of Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. This wine region is near the border of Slovenia and experiences a continental climate. With a long history of winemaking, Plešivica plays host to over 30 family-run wineries and is regarded as the best area in Croatia for making sparkling wine and Pinot Noir. The vineyards lie on hills between 200 and 400 meters in elevation. For better or worse, international travelers tend to overlook this wine region as they head down the highway from Zagreb to the azure coast, missing a major tenet of the Croatian wine scene.
One of the leading producers in the region is Tomac, a small-production winery operated by Tomislav Tomac, his wife, and his father. Widely regarded as the most refined sparkling wine producer in Croatia, Tomac owns seven hectares of vineyards on the slopes of Plešivica hills.
Currently, the sparkling wines account for over 70 percent of Tomac’s wine production. The other 30 percent consists of still whites and one Pinot Noir bottling. All the Tomac sparkling wines are made in méthode traditionelle. For the sparklers, besides using Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, Tomislav challenges the boundary by vinifying a range of indigenous varieties that have previously never been used for making commercial wine.
Tomac is one of the three Croatian producers that are using amphorae to make wine. All Tomac wines are fermented and aged in either amphorae or neutral oak casks between the size of 2,000 and 3,000 liters. Fermentation is done using wild yeasts with the exception of sparkling wines, which rely on commercial yeasts to start the second fermentation in the bottle.
A stalwart of the minimal-intervention philosophy, it is perhaps no surprise that Tomac—specifically Tomislav’s father—was inspired by Friulian producer Josko Gravner, and that’s how the story of Tomac Amfora line began. Gravner is a pioneer of Friulian amber wine and notable for being the one who popularized qvevri(Georgian buried terracotta vessels).
