Twice the Wines half-day tour will start and end with a personal pick-up from your yacht or accommodation by our experienced guide, who will be your private assistant throughout the day, guiding you effortlessly from winery to winery while explaining the island’s rich heritage.

Our first stop as we travel along the island’s scenic lavender road is the sweet hilltop village of Selca for wine and wonderful, home-cooked delicacies at the Lacman Family Winery. This winery specializes in producing long maceration, unfiltered, natural wine using natural yeasts, with minimum human intervention and as little chemistry as possible. Even Lacman’s storage techniques are natural– in 500 to 600 liter clay qvevri vessels which are kept underground.

While rare in Europe, this method of storing wine has been practiced for thousands of years by ancient cultures and is still being used today in the Republic of Georgia.  The wines you will be tasting include the most prized indigenous Hvar grapes like plavac mali, bogdanuša, maraština, posip and kuc.

Paired with the wines are traditional island delicacies like home-made salami/sausage, smoked ham prosciutto, a selection of home-made cheeses served with “Mama Lina’s” home-made jams and pestos.

We’ll enjoy this sumptuous repast al fresco on the winery’s veranda overlooking the lush countryside hills.  And when dessert comes, take your glass of wine and sweets to a nearby terrace and enjoy a stunning sea view!  

After our memorable time up in the hills we’ll wind our way back to the sea to Stari Grad’s Ager, the island’s world-famous UNESCO World Heritage site.  Continuously farmed for 2,400 years, we’ll stop to admire this extraordinary fertile agricultural plain and hear about its history before we go for our second tasting.

When you book our Twice the Wine half-day tour, depending on availability, we will visit one of these renowned island wineries: Dubokovic, Huljić, Pavičić, Tomic, Carić or Bojanic – plus the Lacman Family Winery.

Here’s a brief description of each:

Dubokovic (Jelsa) –  Ivo Dubokovic has been honored as one Croatia’s top boutique winemakers, and with good reason. Faithful to the grapes of Hvar, Dubokovic wines are sumptuous and sought after world-wide.  Among his most famous:  2718 (sunshine in a bottle, after the number of hours of sun Hvar averages annually), Medvedica and Medvid. The tasting experience here is intimate and seductive–conducted by candlelight in the Tomic wine cellar. 

Huljic (Jelsa) – Teo Hulic is one of Hvar’s smaller but most talented winemakers. Producing just 6,000 bottles a year, his cellar is tucked away in the back streets in Jelsa’s old town, next to an excellent restaurant which also bears his name.  Supremely knowledgeable about the island’s indigenous grapes, his range of whites, in particular, celebrate the very best of Hvar viticulture. This year, he has added Mekuja (just 350 bottles), an almost extinct Hvar grape to his small but growing number of outstanding varietals. 

Caric (Svirce) – Ivo Caric is one of the rising stars of the Croatian wine scene. Passionate about island traditions and native varieties, his Bogdanusa was the first to win an international award for this signature Hvar white. In 2016 Caric’s Plovac Ploski was not only showcased in a 3-star Michelin restaurant in Amsterdam, but the elite eatery designed a menu around it!  His tasting facility in Vrboska (“Little Venice”) is directly on one of the town’s canals.

Tomic (Jelsa) – Andro Tomic is one of Croatia’s most well-known winemakers and certainly one of its most ardent. He recently addressed the European Parliament on the difference between sparkling Italian Prosecco and Croatia’s Prosek dessert wine to help resolve the EU disagreement over names. With a wine education from France, Tomic local varietals like Beleca (white) and Plavac Mali Barrique (red) are as magnificent as his Romanesque cellars.

Pavičić (Vrbanj) – The Pavičić brothers, Lukas and Milko, have been involved in viticulture and winemaking since they were young as it’s a centuries-old tradition in the family. Their  focus is on single varietal wines from the autochthonous grape varieties, Pošip, Plavac mali and their most well-known, Bogdanuša.  Their unique dessert wine is from grapes grown in an old Roman village.

Bojanic (Bonjic Bad) – Toni Bojanic is one of the new breeds of Hvar winemakers. Just 26 years old, he comes from a family wine making tradition which dates back more than 500 years. He grows all of his grapes on Hvar’s legendary, steep, southern slops–regarded by many to be the best terroir for Damatia’s most famous red, Plavac mali. Toni’s delightful open-air tastings are right on the sea!  

Lacman (Selca) The Lacman winery specializes in producing long maceration, unfiltered wine using natural yeasts, with minimum human intervention and as little chemistry as possible. Even Lacman’s storage techniques are natural– in 500 to 600 liter clay qvevri vessels stored underground.  While rare in Europe, storing wine underground has been practiced for thousands of years by ancient cultures and is still being used today in the Republic of Georgia.