📍 Mostar

Mostar is a city on the Neretva and the heart of Herzegovinian winemaking, tied to the names Žilavka Mostar and Blatina Mostar. Around it vines grow on red earth, river deposits and brown soil over limestone. Down by the river, in early years, Žilavka is picked as soon as the first days of September.

The fame is old. Merchants sold so much foreign wine under the Mostar name that on 2 November 1893 the city council decided to stamp the local wine with a special mark. The fruit and wine station at Gnojnice, near Mostar, was founded in 1888, and the Jelačić family opened a cellar in 1893. By 1929 three quarters of the Mostar district's vineyards were white grapes: Žilavka, Bena and Krkošija. On the limestone soils common around Mostar, Žilavka wines show a more pronounced aroma.

Legal protection came in 1970 for Žilavka and in 1973 for Blatina. Today the Federal Agromediterranean Institute keeps watch with an accredited lab. Large and small cellars work nearby. Hepok at Bišće Polje has 300 hectares between 45 and 280 metres. Most of it, at Željuša, lies between the Prenj and Velež mountains, and the rest is at Kosor beside the Buna. At Gnojnice, Imperial Vineyards farms about 40 hectares and traces its roots to Austro-Hungarian times; besides Žilavka and Blatina it grows Pošip, Trnjak, Merlot, Syrah and Chardonnay. In 2024 Mostar held the title of European Wine City.

What sets Mostar apart from its neighbours is the early harvest. In Čitluk on the Brotnjo plateau Žilavka ripens from mid-September, while in Mostar and along the Neretva it is picked about two weeks sooner. Look also at Ljubuški, Čapljina and Stolac, and at Herzegovina for the whole region.