Sunken Treasure

The Adriatic Sea’s turquoise waters provide the perfect conditions for aging Croatia’s acclaimed wines. Our correspondent goes diving for the best bottles.

- Jake Emen

Legend has it that there’s treasure resting off the coast of Zuljana, a tiny town with roughly 250 residents located along the southern side of Croatia’s Pelješac Peninsula. And I’ve come here to find it.

Scuba gear strapped on, I dive below the waters and come upon a cage resting at the bottom of the sea —the buried treasure, at last, in the form of seashell- and coral-covered bottles of wine. The treasured wine isn’t the remnant of some ancient shipwreck, however. It’s been placed there purposely by upstart winery Edivo Vina. Because who needs a subterranean wine cave when you have the stunningly beautiful turquoise waters of the Adriatic Sea?

“It’s the perfect storage for the wines because the temperature is constant for the whole year,” says Dora Mratovie, manager of the Edivo Wine Bar in Draee, a 15-minute drive away from the current dive site in Zuljana, and adjacent to the actual winery in Janjina. Mratovie says the water constantly hovers around 59 degrees Fahrenheit, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s right in the sweet spot of the temperature range the wine industry has long coveted for storage and maturation.

Dubbed Navis Mysterium, Latin for Ship’s Mystery, the wine spends between 18 months and two years underwater before it’s ready for release. With enough time, deeper and more nuanced flavors develop, and rough edges are rounded out.