We had a wine tour late morning/early afternoon, the timing turned out to be a good thing. Just after we finished breakfast the heavens opened up and the wind began to blow and visibility reduced dramatically. We were in our room when it all hit which was lucky on a few fronts, we were out of the weather and we were able to shut the windows to stop the water streaming down the walls and dripping on our luggage! All good, fixed, our luggage is now cleaner!
We got picked up a bit before 11am, our driver, Nikola, was a Korcula local, lived here all his life and his house was right behind our hotel in the old Town. He had a VERY broad accent and I found him difficult to understand a lot of the time. He drives a taxi when he is not guiding or doing one of a number of other jobs, we were in his taxi for the tour.
Our plan for the tour was to drive west to a village called Smokvica, pretty well at the geographic centre of the Island of Korcula. There were several scenic stops planned for along the way, but the rain put an end to them. We did get a couple of opportunities to get out and take scenic photos, and at others we took photos from inside the car, where possible, due to the rain.
We drove through a tiny village, Pupnat, and saw its 2 star Michelin restaurant Konoba Mate, who would have though you’d find a Michelin starred restaurant out there! Evidently their prices are cheaper than restaurants in town!
Along the drive through the countryside we saw lots of stone walled / slate roofed old time animal shelters (most are abandoned now) they looked very rustic, the island seems to have a lot of low pine forests covering the uninhabited areas, there are lots of wild pigs on the island, lots of herbs such as rosemary and lavender grow wild by the roadsides, and the island is mostly limestone with the higher steeper areas generally bare of vegetation.
Our first stop out of the car was at a pullover overlooking Pupnatska Luka, a beautiful little bay with a small settlement, there was no power or water services to the settlement so they relied on rainwater and solar power.
From there we drove through Cara, the grape production centre of the Island. They don’t make commercial wine there, but supply grapes to wineries in other areas. There are a lot of very small vineyards in the area where the owners just make enough wine for themselves.
The rain stopped just as we pulled into our first winery in Smokvica, the Grosica Winery.
We were greeted and then they put on a video of the history of the vineyard as they prepared our treats platter(preserved meats, olives, anchovies, cheeses, olive oil and capers) for our tasting, we really didn’t pay any attention to it, but from what I saw it was very much a family movie night thing. The winery grew two grape varieties, Grk and Plavac Mali. If you grow Grk you pretty well have to grow Plavac Mali, to pollinate the vines, as we learnt yesterday. So they make Grk, Rose, Plavac Mali and a series of fortified drinks similar to Grappa.
We tried a white, Podip Grosic. White. Berba 2021. Which I thought was easy drinking, another white, Rukatac Grosic 2022, apparently the grape variety is difficult to grow away from this area. I liked it. Then there was a Rose, which I thought was good, and finally to finish off their wines, we tried a red, their Plavac Mali barrique 2022 (1 yr in croation oak) (Plavac Mali means Little flowers) it very light and fruity.
I tried their 5 Grappa, fortified wines. Prosec (White wine based) yum, Travaarica (Herb base) rocket fuel, Od Rogaca (Carob based) YUM , Limoncelo (Lemon based) yum and Cherry Grappa (Cherry based) sweet.
We left there and drove back east through the island, past the Korcula township and onto Lumbarda where we went yesterday.
We called into the Vitis Winery. I tried the 2021 Grk (which was very dry ), the Rose (semi dry) and the Plavac Mali, while Deb tried a semi-dry 2022 Grk instead of the Plavac, a good choice. Their dry wines were very dry for our taste.
On the way back we got a great, different, view over the Old Town.
From there we drove back to our hotel, a fun outing and interesting wines.
The afternoon was relaxing around our part of the old town. The ships in Port were a repeat of last night for the Cruise Tour boats, 6 to 7 abreast at the dock. 
