Ep. 1734 Marija Mrgudić | Voices With Cynthia Chaplin

The Italian wine podcast is the community driven platform for Italian winegeeks around the world. Support the show by donating at italian wine podcast dot com. Donate five or more Euros, and we'll send you a copy of our latest book, my Italian Great Geek journal. Absolutely free. To get your free copy of my Italian GreatGeek journal, click support us at italian wine podcast dot com, or wherever you get your pots. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences, working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Welcome to voices. This is me, Cynthia Chaplin, and today, I'm delighted to welcome Marja Murgoodic to voices. Marah hails from the Palges at Peninsula on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, where she co owns Bora Mortgageditch winery with her brother, Niko Bora. And she grew up working in her family's vineyards, when the grapes were handed over to the cooperative winery in her village, but her father died when she was eleven, and that's when she decided to become a winemaker all on her own. And she credits her mother and her grandmother for encouraging her at a time when men held all the power in Croatia. So I'm fascinated to hear your story, Mara. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Well, we know that women in Croatia have always been involved in winemaking historically. Croatia has been a winemaking region for thousands of years. But it's only recently that women's influence has become more recognized. And I just wonder, what was it like for you as a young woman winemaker in the early days without your father? You know, were were the men in the wine sector welcoming and supportive? What was it like when you began? Of course. The traditional way of life in small village, Dalmatian Village, Portomi, where I was born, was very patriotic in the time when I was growing up, of course, We say that we may hold the three walls of the house, but men sit on the top of the table. My father died when I was eleven and my brother thirteen. So we grow up with mother is head of family and stay. Our grandmother has also become a widow at a young age. So she was also there on the time in in the home. All of that impact me and my choice a lot. I can imagine it must have been, you know, not that easy. Yeah. When I was young, my family lived just from our vineyards. And in the time of socialism, there was no private winemaking. Of course not. I think people forget that now. You know, it's It's not that long ago. It's not a long. My fall, child call was in socialities. The grapes were handed to cooperative binary for over five hundred families in our village and the village near. And we could make only small amounts of wine for us and at home. There was no possibility way to get out on the market with our own wine. There was only cooperative pay the grapes, reasonable place in the reasonable time. It was all pre dealt, there was no free mark because there was no free market. That's right. And I'm sure it impacted the quality of the wine making too. Yeah. And I got into private wine making in nineteen ninety five. Right? Away when Democrats and open market come to Croatia. And I was very young and motivated the time, and I had to confront with a lot of changes, but, also my male colleagues also had the confront the sub changes because it's all new for all of us. And in that time, there is no revolt between us. Sometimes say me as young and image sure, but I never had any difficulty with the them because I was a woman. I got a lot of respect from them. Even through I was the only woman in the wine making in a whole region at the time. There was no problem. That's incredible. You are the only one. Yeah. I went to the only one in that time. There was a the time when we started the private tour winemaking. Wow. In nineteen ninety five, so how many winemakers were there in your area, including you? The time was around ten. We started. We finished with the cooperative and started on January because the cooperative has a five hundred co operators, families. Right. Were the ten of you close? Did you help each other? How did it work at the beginning? Yeah. There was a difference of time because there was all new for us. New market. Our seller there there was no full of the equipment we help each other in that time. It's such a strong story. You know, I just need to point out that's not even thirty years ago. Yeah. It's around twenty five years. Yeah. And I I think you and I are of a similar age but I know, you know, certainly my children never experienced that time, and it's it's interesting how people just tend to forget. And so you were so lucky. The ten of you had each other and you were able to to grow the wine business I know that you've also credited another woman as being an important role model for you, and her name was Andelka Anjit. Can you tell us how she influenced your growth in the wine sector? Yeah. Oh, dear, later in the late sixties. She came in the late sixties. She came in the really Patiasar Village and the enrollment as a young analogist. To work at a cooperative winery. And with her work, humanity, and knowledge, she got the trust of all men in management as well as mostly men in cooperatives of the winery. That's incredible all by herself. Yeah. Very young in that very part of our village. They called her mother of English, and I grew up watching her work and that also impact of my choice later in life. And in my life to me, it was normal to stand up with my knowledge and work in all men business. Because I'm looking how is she doing that? I think you had to be tough in those days. Yeah. And strong and probably very brave as well because when your family is depending on you, it puts much more responsibility on you. Yes. That's but there was, different times, different growing up different than today. Of course. Yeah. How's it going today? Are there more women in wine and Croatia out? You have groups of women winemaker who you can depend on and share your knowledge with? They are mostly men's winemakers, but there is a lot of a woman who has winery, who acknowledges and working that, industry. And we have, the association, woman on file in Croatia, founded in two thousand eleven by Sanja Musaffaria. Right. Yes. Of course. She does a lot of things with wine. Yes. Yes. She's very active in that. And, throughout that organization, woman and chain knowledge experiences support each other, and they organize a lot of activity for woman and wine throughout the year. Are you enjoying this podcast? Don't forget to visit our YouTube channel, mama jumbo shrimp for fascinating videos covering Stevie Kim and her travels across Italy and beyond. Meeting winemakers, eating local foods, and taking in the scenery. Now back to the show. Oh, that's great to know. That's good. How many women take part? How many participate? I don't know now. I'm the member, of course, because I am on the first day member. But, I don't know now, but there is the one at the association, the main education in in and we have one in split in the area. There is a lot of women all over the creation. That's so good. That's such a positive development in such a short period of time. That's great. More than twenty to fifty, I think, in every organization. Wow. That's amazing. That's really great. In a very, very short period of time, it shows how devoted women are to wine and wine making in Croatia. That's that's great news. I know your winery has become truly a family business. You know, it has always been in your family. And now you work with your brother and your children. You know, what's it like these days working altogether? You know, life is going a lot better for you now. I know your winery is doing very well. So who makes the decisions and who's leader? What's it like working with the family? Do you see your children working there in the future? Our winery, as you say, is a family business and when I started, my brother joined me as soon as he finished the maritime career. My children are also there. My son Boris is doing, the core business with the sales and marketing. My daughter Antonia is anologist, and she's taking care of the winemaking process. And my third youngest daughter, Lucia, is also helping with marketing. And children of my brother, also helping in the winery when they are at home in Potomeo because daughter is painting and she living in Barcelona and son is sailors and she live in Dubromic, but they came on the harvest time and get the summer and they helping us when he is at home. I think there's something really special when you can pass on to your children that connection to to a family vineyard the way that you have done. I'm wondering about Antonia. She's an analogist now. You said, did she study in Croatia? Yes. She studied. Two of my daughters and, Antonia, they, finish high school in America in US, and they came here and, finished college, Antonia, agronomy in Zagreb, and Boris's American, college of, management in Dubai. And Lutia is, journalist. She finished, college in, Zagreb for Zumales. Wow. That's fantastic. I love to hear the story that you're you've got another generation coming along behind you to pick up the reins when you're ready to hand over. You know, your winery, Bora Mogudic is considered one of the top artisan wineries in Croatia. So I think we have to talk about the winery a bit here now. How many hectares have you got? And how many wines are you producing? How many bottles a year? We have boutique winery, and we have around eight hectare rovinas. A really small eight. It's small, but in our it's a big force. And we produce, forty to fifty thousand bottle of wine, most of our vineyards on the steep hills of Bingach and Posto. And we also have seminars in inland of Palishats on peninsula. Yeah. Well, where you are, it is so steep. I've seen photographs of your crew vineyards, Engach and Post. And it's like heroic winery that we have here in Italy. Everything has to be done by hand, you know, in liguria and Mount Aetna and places like that. How long is your growing season there? How many people work with you in the vineyards and and help with the harvest? Because it has to be done by hand. You can't get tractors up those steep hills. Well, like some parts in Italy. You saw heroic vineyards in Italy. We have also heroic vineyards in the, and post to, which is very steep hills and soil full of stones and sand and, on that, position, we can use, the mechanical or electronics. Everything be done manually. With that time of work is longer and we need more people to work in our vineyard. We have three employers that work for us all year along with all of us in family, of course. During the spring work, we usually have additional six and in harvest season ten people. To keep our wine healthy and so stable during the whole year, we need to work in them all year long. Yeah. I think that's that's one of the keys of being an artisan winemaker. You take good care of the vineyard and the land, not just the grapes. You have to take care of everything. I I know you're farming organically now. Was Was that the choice you made? Our motto is wine. It's made in vineyards. So we put as much effort as we can into our vineyards. I so agree with that. I if you make a mistake in the vineyard, it can't be corrected in the cellar. I think you're out completely right there. And and I know you're farming organically now. Was that a choice that you made or was it a tradition that you followed? How how important is organic winemaking in Croatia now? Uh-huh. Our vineyard position give us the to work in an echo and stable way. It is not just that we want to make wine in the echo way and we go that way. Dingo supposed to hit slope forty two sixty degrees, tip towards, the sea, sandy soil, and, triple insulation. So we cannot work there, but in the echo bay because of all that in that position, we don't choose any pesticides or heritage, and everything is done manually. Or our traditional is to respect and to live with the national and that is the core of our business. Well, I think that's so important now. You know, when we talk about marketing, are you selling mostly in Croatia or are you exporting at all? We support about half of our production mostly in the US and European Union. We have been in the US market for twenty years already. Wow. You got in there really early. Yeah. Rest of our wines, we sell inland in Croatia. We are a small wine area, and we don't have the capacity to be on the shelves of supermarkets. So, most of our wines are sold in restaurants, wine bars, and wine shops? Well, it's it's amazing because, you know, nowadays, young people, people who are new to wine, just coming into wine for the first time, they really want to know how their grapes are grown. They want things to be organic and sustainable. So having that philosophy of taking care of your vineyard is so important in terms of attracting new people, getting people involved with what you're doing. So it's exciting to hear that you are keeping up those traditions. You know, of course, as you said, it's so steep in some places. You you can't do anything else. You have to do it by hand, but it's nice to hear that, you know, the importance of it is more than just a label on a bottle. It's something that is so meaningful to you. I wanna talk a little bit about the wines that you're making. We leave it there. Yeah. Exactly. You live here. You want it to be right. Exactly. And it's it's your family vineyard. You want you don't want pesticides and chemicals. I completely agree with that. But let's talk a little bit about the wines because I am ashamed to admit that I know very little about Croatian wines. Only the ones that are related to Zinfandel, and we'll get to that. But I think most of my listeners will be fascinated to hear what you're doing. So I know Bingache was the first vineyard to be protected as a DOCG back in nineteen sixty one, but you know, the yugoslavian government by then, but ultimately it became the first red wine in the region, you know, to be called a premium red wine. So tell us about the grape and and the wines that you're making there. Dingachi is a remarkable position with the all of deep heeled soil and hisolache has the perfect condition for plowatt smile. Hundred percent of vineyards there are plowatt smiley and, our centers understood that a long time ago. Dingach was, as you said, first protected as a docG in ex yugoslavia back in, nineteen sixty one. And I'm not sure, but I think that it was even protected before Kianti in Tuscany. I'm not sure. You're right. Yeah. You're right. And my family had luck to encourage those positions now there we now produce wine, red, full body wine with strong alcohol in an amazing dark ruby color. That's just a few commercial wines. Well, I love Croatia. I've I've had a couple of wonderful visits in Croatia. And now I'm gonna have to come and see you and and really get involved with the winemaking scene there. But you mentioned it, Plava Chmali. That's that's the grape that is an offspring of Krilineq, which is Zinfandel in the US and Primativo in Korea. So this is a grape that's near and dear to my heart because it has such an interesting story of traveling around the world. And we know that this is a grape that loves being hot and, you know, it's very expressive of it tear water all over the world. It grows in different places. So, you know, you said your wines are big and powerful with this lovely famous well traveled grape. How many wines do you make from Plavaj Mali? Different labels. Plava, Smaliel, is, definitely most important variety is, obviously, and, of course, in pallet shots. And we do the two labels of the Dhingach and Post two, and we do the plavats, which is inland the wine from England, and we do one, Kuwait, Galleria. And the second label, Maritza, also plows, hundred percent of plow. So you're doing all different things with oak and with wood and yeah. Six different variety from the first second and the basic wine. And we do the dessert wine from the project, from the white grapes through and from the Plava smiley red crochet. We have two. And how are you making your sweet wines? Are you doing them botrytis style or passitos style? Traditional Prochet is only traditional style. Okay? We're picking and, drawing on the sun. Maybe fifteen to thirteen days. We're drying the grape and, and after that, crushing and put on a big glass bottle to fermenting slowly three to five year. It's a traditional way. Wow. So I'm just gonna remind people who are listening Yeah. Only eight hectares, and you're making a lot of different styles of wine. This is a lot of work that you're doing. Yeah. It's a lot of work, but but we take the position for the labels. So position give us the different wine. Well, this is exciting. So, I I know winemaking in Croatia in general has just kind of blown up in the past twenty years. You know, what do you think have been the most important changes? You know, where do you see the Croatian wine industry going in the next you know, five or ten years. Croatian, why making god the new way back in the nineteenth? When we opened the mark, Weinstein was developing very fast to catch up with the rest of Europe. It's weird, isn't it? Because Croatia was making wine before a lot of other parts of Europe, but they're so far ahead in marketing and technique. Yes. But On our road, we had lots of bumps, good ones, and bad ones. Generally speaking, winemaking has developed much faster than structural and legal regulation. I think that's always the way. Now we came to the phase where winemaking is development and our vineyards don't have any security or regulation. A lot of people have vineyards and they don't produce their own wine. And they don't have the security when selling their grapes to bigger's binary. And I believe that if our regulations stay the same, that both the bigger miners, smaller wineries they sell their grapes will be in problem in the few years. That's really interesting. That's very interesting to hear you say that. I I I agree with you. I I think when winemakers can make their own wine, you know, right in the vineyards where they're growing it. I always do think that there's something on a quality level that's gonna be better. So I agree, but that I didn't realize this is something that was really affecting Croatian wine. That's very interesting to hear you say that. Do you think that people will start making their wine more often or keep selling the grapes? I think, unfortunately, keep sells the vineyards. Is it just economically better, easier? Easier. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, easy isn't always the best way. So I'm glad I'm glad to hear that you are being a champion of of artisan winemaking and boutique winery. With these very important grapes in such a special and ancient area and benefiting from all the changes that have happened in the past twenty five years. I read a quote from you that I really liked You said a truly fulfilled and successful woman is someone who defines success on her own terms based on what brings happiness and satisfaction to both herself and those closest to her. I thought that was really, so meaningful. How how does this philosophy guide you in your work? What's your advice to young women in Croatia who want to be in the wine world now? Of course, my philosophy of it through life was that successful and happiness is something that gives, satisfaction to me and my family. To be happy and satisfied, we need to be all ourselves. That is not always easy. But if I trust in myself, I believe I can make it. I agree. Let me ask you a personal question. Does it still give you a thrill to see your wine bottles being sold in in wine shops What's your favorite swine that you make? I always tell all my wine is like my children. All is my favorite. In any situation, when you sit on stall in any situation, when you sitting and drinking, on the table every day. You can drink, the bigger wine, like Dinkach and Coastal for, like the zipline. You can drink, something easy to drink. By basic or, second label. But if you're celebrating and have a special dinner, you take the first label or if you on the dessert wine is the time for the sweets and treats. And all wine is like my children, all is the best. My wife. Exactly. And and some days, you you like the company of one of them more than another. At Christmas time, I we went sweet wine too. So that's that's really nice. Here in the Croatia is also in our village and my family in Christmas times, the sweet wine project and the mantala. That is one, very old traditional cake, what we made with the mask. Oh, wow. With the with the grape skins. Yeah. Be the math. Amazing. Well, let me ask you a question. I am, very interested in Rosay wines, particularly Italian Rosay wines, which is my specialty. Do you make a Rosay wine? We've made the last year. We start with the rosette wine with the rosette wine different than rosette. Fantastic with the Plavich Mali. No different than that. We've you know, that's the million komayi garbage, who dies few days ago in two thousand, we got recognized the Plavat Smali genetically the son of Refender or Premetio or Selena. Yes. And here in Domesha, after Philoxera, Selena, wanish from Dalmatian, Plava, came as a more resistant variety. After the recognition of the connection of Plava, and then lots of people start planting new vineyard or or the Fandel or primitivo. Where are you getting your root stock for Zenfundel at Fortiva? And back in two thousand and seven, I started with a business partner, American businessman, Bobel Moshean, his family. But was a big wine enthusiast, especially for dermation red wine, and they came here and they buy the house in Duvron, he can run the West to the vineyards, and he likes my wine, and and he want to bring Zifendel back home to Croatia, and we decide to plant vineyards on Pelosha. That's incredible. So he brought Zinfandel rootstock back from America to Croatia. He want to bring the Difendale, and we are the first one to bring the plant's orginal, California, Difendale in Minneapolis. That's like going full circles. Zinfandel started in Croatia. Went all the way to America, and now you've brought it back. That's a wonderful story. Yeah. Now more than fifteen years later, the multifamily and our family make together both the founder and English right under the Belmoje family wine label. And last year, we know that Defendell in America start like, white and Rosette wine as like a basic wine. And we last year started with a rosette. Or rosette from there. But not big, big addition, but we start with the rosette. I'm gonna have to find this wine and taste it. Yeah. And that is the in addition of our normal different end that is not so special, but addition, we do the rosette. That's great. Oh, I'm so glad I asked you that question. I I have to be fair and tell our listeners I hadn't put that on my little list of things I was going to ask you. So thank you for telling me about that. And also, on the end, thank you for the to to be with your guests. And I would like to wish everyone Merry Christmas as I said, for New York and to all of your listeners. That is great. Well, Thank you so much, Mara. I can't thank you enough for this really fun conversation. I've learned so much about women in Croatia and the wine making industry. It sounds positive. It sounds like things are going forward in a really beneficial way, and I'm excited to learn more about Croatian wine myself. So I thank you so much. I wish you a huge happy New Year. Thank you. And I hope that one day you came to Belleshire to see me and my winery. Thank you. Yes. Peace and good wine to all my listeners You're always welcome. I'm booking my trip now. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast among the leading wine podcast in the world, and the only one with a daily show. Tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italianwine podcast dot com, SoundCloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.