Photography: STIGLICPHOTO
Author: Velimir Cindrić
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The famous Slavonian winemaker Josip Galić was just an unripe boy when he started earning pocket money by working in his grandfather’s and father’s vineyard of ten thousand vines, from which they obtained grapes for wine enough to feed their family and friends. However, his path of life initially took him far away from vineyards and wine. His own women’s clothing boutique set shop in 1981, and two years later he started manufacturing spare parts for washing machines, which placed his family business in the top ten artisan family empires of Yugoslavia. Galić opened his first white goods retail store in 1991, and his first supermarket in Požega just a year later.
On another plane, starting in 1972, Galić bought 12,000 vines near the Chapel of St Vitus in Požega, a vineyard that the family had cultivated for their own pleasure, producing around 10,000 litres of wine annually. (“Our biggest hit was Pinot Noir, and we first started selling it commercially in 1988. Those bottles now have a special place in my private archive, at the Galić Winery”, Galić proclaims.)
However, Galić’s biggest turning point in life and earning a living occurred in 2007, the year when he decided to pursue his family’s tradition of viticulture and winemaking with even greater ambition. Specifically, in that year, he sold the Presoflex department store chain with its 52 retail units to the Mercator company, and the director of the company at the time suggested that he use this capital to do something for Slavonia, that is, to invest it in vineyards and leave a mark in the field of winemaking, making it his turf. That is how it all started.
– I got into winemaking out of love, and I’m truly lucky to have had the necessary means to start the business. It’s common knowledge that winemaking requires huge and ongoing investments and that the return takes time to materialize. Sure, I was also inspired by the national and international success of mould-breaking wine entrepreneurs from the area of Kutjevo, such as Enjingi and Krauthaker. Both of them are my good friends, and they’ve always been my role models when it comes to making wine, but I cannot leave out Kutjevo d.d. either, as well as the great wine expert Mr Jambrović, a pioneer in making top-shelf wines from Kutjevo. I am very happy because of the role these people played in my journey – says Josip Galić.
The first wines from the 2008 vintage showed that the wine route was a good choice, and made history that promised to deliver a great success story in the years to come.
Today, the Galić Winery is a modern winery for processing grapes, with its own vineyards covering a total area of 63 hectares, and a capacity of up to 330,000 litres.
– We planned on buying 15 hectares of old vineyards to begin with, which we did, and then exceeded it by far and wide, with the production capacity following suit. These are, of course, nice figures and great results, but I must point out that we are more than just numbers. We are a place where love blossoms, where passions are awakened, a place where legends are carved… – Galić explains.
These 63 hectares of self-owned vineyards are spread across six different locations in the Kutjevo vineyard area. Most of the vineyards are planted with graševina, while other varieties include sauvignon, chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, and merlot. They also buy a certain amount of grapes from local subcontractors, who cultivate their vineyards according to their instructions. Furthermore, they take special care of their top locations – Stupnik, Radovanci, Vetovo…
– The Stupnik location, which once belonged to the great winemaker and our friend Davor Zdjelarević, is an excellent breeding ground for sparkling wines, as well as for chardonnay and pinot noir. We take great pride in that location today. We own a wonderful hotel called Stupnički dvori there as well, located in the heart of our vineyards, which we also bought from the Zdjelarević family. There is a champagne cellar in the cellars of Stupnički dvori, and we have our own tourist facilities in Kutjevo, too. Both in Stupnik and Kutjevo, we offer a wide range of activities for wine lovers and connoisseurs, but also for all tourists looking to spice up their vacation with top-notch gastronomy. In this segment of the tourism offer, we see potential for year-round activities. I think this is a nice example of a combo of winemaking and tourism. You see, I’m convinced that the key to Croatia’s success lies in connecting its vast greens and its big blue – for it is the only way to make tourism an export channel for the entire Croatian economy, especially when it comes to the production of quality local food and wine – says Galić and continues:
– We have already secured VIP treatment and popularity for Galić wines at all tourist hotspots in Croatia, but our goal is to develop a year-round offer of activities related to wine tourism. Our desire is to become a must-visit wine pit stop, which would be open to tourists who have a soft spot for wine throughout the year, through wine tasting and familiarisation with the complex production of this liquid gold – he says.
After the “wineshed” year of 2007, the next stage in the development of Galić wines began in 2010, with the idea of opening a new winery. The whole story started small, in a rented cellar in Lukač, a settlement within the town of Kutjevo.
– You know, we like to say that we started out in a garage, but to tell you the truth, even then, we had state-of-the-art equipment, but only in a much more modest space. I have always had an excellent team of oenologists by my side, as well as an excellent team of people in general, because I believe that this is the key to success. As of late, our oenologists have joined forces with Jean Philippe Fort, a renowned French oenologist with extensive experience in viticulture and winemaking. Jean works hand in hand with our team, specifically lending his hand in the selection of grape varieties, process optimisation, and creation of unique wine labels that reflect the authenticity of the region’s terroir and the famous Kutjevo vineyards. In addition to improving the quality of the existing wines, the cooperation with Jean Philippe Fort has enabled the Galić Winery to take the Bordeaux cuvée to a whole new plateau.
I have to mention that Jean is known for his expert knowledge of the Bordeaux grape varieties and his absolute pitch for striking the right wine note in order to achieve the perfect harmony of aromas and flavours. The uncompromising quality of the said wine was also endorsed at the Decanter World Wine Awards in London, which, needless to say, opens the door to the European market, so we are already selling considerable quantities outside Croatian borders – says Galić.
In order to be taken seriously and to truly make it in the winemaking business, one has to have a core philosophy, i.e., a clearly conceived style of wine that one wants to produce. However, many winemakers find it difficult to resist the temptation of tampering with this philosophy, especially over a longer period of time.
– My philosophy has always been the same: just produce the best darn wines. This is what we strive for now, but the truth is that we have adapted the styles to market trends. I have been an entrepreneur for 40 years and, over the course of my professional life, I have created, shaped, and completed numerous projects; however different they may have been, my entrepreneurial maxim has always come down to insisting on quality as well as investing in people and technology.
At the Galić Winery, we have these so-called stainless-steel rockets, the kind you usually only see in France. I didn’t order these by chance; I knew what I was doing. We also have small fermenters, carefully arranged according to different volumes and filtration processes. Figuratively speaking, this is our playground, our creative lab, where we make our special ice wines and other Prädikat wines, as well as experiment with graševina clones.
We also have concrete barrels that come in various shapes (egg, amphora, vat…) and various volumes (1300, 3000, and 3300 litres) intended for the production of macerated wines. We fill the barrels with graševina of clonal selection, which we grow in our vineyard at the Radovanci location. Out of the 12 clones that we planted there, we chose the four we considered best, which we then also planted at the Vetovo location. We will continue to distribute them as the original, old graševina of the same quality as the one that was grown 200-300 years ago – says Josip about the extremely interesting project of the Graševina Croatica association, managed by Professor Edi Maletić from the Faculty of Agriculture in Zagreb and other Kutjevo winemakers.
At the moment, the Galić wine company offers a range of ten labels. When it comes to red wines, there is Crno 9, a superb dry wine with a controlled denomination of origin from the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot varieties, dark red in colour with the aroma of blackcurrants and prunes, and rich and lush in texture with soft, velvety tannins that are caressing and deep. There is also Pinot Noir, a ruby-coloured wine with pronounced aromas of cherries and wild strawberries and a rich aftertaste.
The white wines that stand out include Bijelo 9, a superb dry wine made from low-yield Graševina (50%), Chardonnay (25%), and Sauvignon (25%), grown at the top locations of the winery, aged on fine lees (sur lie), as well as two varietal wines: Chardonnay (a Decanter silver), a top-shelf dry wine made from grapes from the Podgorje location, with refined aromas and a full-bodied and unctuous, but at the same time velvety taste, and Sauvignon blanc (a Decanter gold), another top-quality wine made from grapes from the Radovanci and Podgorje location, with an intense and fruity aroma, 15% of which is macerated for 6 to 12 hours.
Some other prestigious labels include Graševina kasna berba (a Decanter silver), a late-harvest, lower-yield premium-quality dry wine made from grapes from the top locations, with wonderful and delicate fruity aromas and distinctive scents of the Kutjevo vineyards terroir, and Graševina Leon, a selected-harvest wine of raisined grapes from the Radovanci location, made from specially selected and naturally raisined grapes, aged gold in colour, with a rich bouquet of flavours and aromas that lingers on the lips and the palate like a lover unwilling to leave his darling.
The range is rounded off by Rosé (a Concours Mondiale gold), a premium-quality semi-dry wine made from the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir varieties, and two second-line wines (first appeared in 2010) – G-točka bijelo, a top-notch Graševina from young vineyards, and G-točka crno, a red wine with emblematic varietal fragrances of black and red fruit with a hint of herbal notes.
– Which wines am I most proud of? Look, my wines are like children to me, and I can’t play favourites; I give special attention and love to each and every one of them. If I really had to single out my personal favourite, my answer would be graševina as a variety. We pegged away at the limited edition of Galileo graševina for several months. Each bottle of Galić Galileo 2022 represents a rare opportunity, for there are only 1,800 examples available. But the real secret behind this wine lies – and is laid down – in the Galileoak barrel, the first of its kind in Croatia and ninth in the world. This barrel represents a fusion of tradition and innovation. Its patented spherical shape and 360° rotation system allow for gentle stirring during fermentation, resulting in delicate extraction and ripening. I am very happy that, after many months of working on this project, we can proudly present this true winemaking expertise to wine aficionados.
By the way, we have two more big surprises in store for the autumn, on which we are working hard, and which, I believe, will launch the Galić Winery even further into orbit – Josip announces mysteriously.
The Galić wine company made an even bigger name for itself thanks to its new winery. Two architects from Zagreb, Zoran Zidarić and Tomislav Ćurković of the architectural firm Dva arhitekta, received the highest state award “Vladimir Nazor”, the international BIG SEE Architecture Award, and the American Architecture MasterPrize 2019 award for bringing that project to fruition.
The new winery is a fusion of modern and traditional architecture, a house with clean and simple lines that blends perfectly into the Kutjevo scenery, while maintaining a contemporary finish. The authors drew inspiration from traditional wine cellars, sealing it off with concrete and bricks. Barrels can be seen through the winery’s large glass walls, attracting attention of the passers-by.
– In 2018, we opened a cellar at the very heart of Kutjevo, near the castle built in 1232, a move that has brought us great pride and earned us five design awards. I put a piece of myself in every part of the winery. I spent many nights working on the smallest of details. The entire team’s ideas guided the construction of the new winery, its arrangement and equipment reflecting our innovative thinking. We have travelled all around the world, absorbing knowledge from our colleagues and learning from their experience; we have consulted with them, but also with each other. We did our best to get the most out of all that, and the biggest reward are the results we see today. For me, the Galić Winery is a blend of art, expertise, and functionality. Here, we have combined old and new practises, with a smooth finish of the latest trends. This can be seen in the different barrels we use, as well as our multiple approaches to fermentation… We tend to play with technology, but also with art, and our wines clearly show that we got game – Galić says proudly.
By the looks of everything that has been seen and said so far, it is clear that Galić has enough ideas and plans for the future. There is the new cellar, new vineyards, new wines…
– What does wine mean to me personally? It’s quite simple: wine is my lifestyle, my one great love with which I grew up and to which I have given a lot of care and attention. Here at the Galić winery, we like to say that love is wine, and wines are Galić – Josip Galić concludes.
Galileo and Mateo: Gold and Platinum!
At the prestigious Grow du Monde 2024 wine competition, held at the end of May in Hungary (in Balatonfured, a town on the shores of Lake Balaton), the Galić winery won two exceptional awards.
“I am overjoyed that our Galileo graševina won gold in the mature graševina category of the Grow du Monde wine competition, which only signed off on the quality of our new label.
We are also very proud of the platinum award we got for our selected-harvest Graševina Mateo, named after my grandson. No wine has won more points at this major international competition than our champion Mateo!” says Josip Galić with tremendous pleasure.
