u r t o r y
A story that began with Ivan
Every family winery has its beginning. Ours starts in Runovići, among the vineyards of the Imotski region, and with a man who believed that wine from this land could be far more than an everyday drink.
Although the Jerković family had grown grapes for generations, in 1998 Ivan Jerković decided to take a step further and turn the family production into a more serious wine story. He founded the Jerković Winery and began bottling his own wines. At a time when Kujundžuša was widely regarded as a simple, everyday wine, Ivan saw something quite different in it — the potential of a fine wine deserving its own place, its own name and its own story.
Kujundžuša would become his greatest challenge in wine.
Ivan refused to accept the received wisdom that Kujundžuša was good only for quenching thirst, for spritzers or with lunch. He believed that the terroir of the Imotski region, the old vineyards and the variety itself could produce a wine of serious character. In time his persistence began to be confirmed at wine competitions, most notably with the gold medal won in 2005 at Sabatina in Dubrovnik.
For Ivan that moment meant far more than a medal. It was proof that what he had believed in had been worth believing in.
From father to sons
Ivan’s story did not end with him.
Although his elder son Mate spent years building his own path far from the vineyard — through football, kinesiology and work with athletes — life brought him home again. Family circumstances and his parents’ illness made the return to Runovići necessary, but what at first looked like an obligation became, in time, his calling.
Mate took over the winery and led it through one of the most important phases of its development. His first major harvest was in 2012, at a time when Ivan was already gravely ill. It was a symbolic changing of the generations — the last harvest led by the father and the first in which the son took responsibility.
Ivan died in 2013, but he left behind more than vineyards, a cellar and wine. He left the idea that Kujundžuša can be a great wine, and that tradition need not be preserved by keeping it unchanged but by developing it — and perhaps most importantly, he left his sons a reason to continue.
Two brothers. One vineyard.
Today the Jerković Winery is run by Mate and Tomislav Jerković.
Their paths were different, but in the end the same thing brought them together — wine.
Mate brings experience, intuition, years spent among the vines and in the cellar, and knowledge earned along his own path. Tomislav, on the other hand, took the road their father had once wanted for a son — he graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture in Zagreb in Viticulture and Oenology, and devoted himself professionally to growing and winemaking.
And so the family story found a new balance.
One brother brings experience. The other expertise. Both the same goal.
Today they make decisions about the vineyards, the production and the wines together — tasting, arguing and searching for the best route through each harvest. In their relationship there is no rule that the last word belongs to the elder brother. The last word belongs to the better solution.
Ivan is gone, but he never left the winery
In the new Jerković winery in Glavina Donja, a photograph of their father hangs in the place of honour in the tasting room. Ivan did not live to see the new winery, nor Tomislav’s degree, nor how his sons would expand what he had started — but he is present in every harvest, every decision and every bottle that leaves the cellar.
Above all in the wine that carries his name.
Ivan is a special interpretation of Kujundžuša from an old vineyard — a wine that sets out to show how far this indigenous variety can go when approached with respect, patience and knowledge.
From Runovići out into the world
The Jerković Winery is now entering a new phase. What began as a small family cellar has become a modern winery able to take on new volumes, new guests and new ideas — without breaking its connection to the place where it all started.
Runovići remains the foundation of the story. That is where the vineyards, the people, the growers and the family tradition are.
The new winery in Glavina Donja, however, has opened a door to the world. Guests now come to the tasting room from different regions and countries, and the wine becomes their first encounter with the Imotski region.
And that is exactly what Mate and Tomislav wanted — that a person should not simply drink the wine, but come to know the land it comes from through it.
It is the story Ivan Jerković began telling almost three decades ago, and which his sons continue today.