Saints Hills Is Trying to Bring Croatian Wine to a World Class Level

While Dubrovnik’s starring role in Game of Thrones filling in for King’s Landing has brought record tourism to Croatia, it has been less successful in bringing attention to the country’s wine. With a long history that begins in the Roman era and extends through the breakup of Yugoslavia over 20 years ago, Croatia is still considered an emerging wine region in much of the world. And while many wineries there are turning out terrific bottles from both indigenous and international varieties, one high-profile couple, Ernest and Ivana Tolj, have worked tirelessly to create wine that can compete with the best from around the world. From hiring French flying winemaker Michel Rolland to coax out Plavac Mali’s finest characteristics to placement with an American importer with an esteemed international portfolio, their Saints Hills Winery has thrown a spotlight on the potential of wine from Croatia and opened doors for many of their colleagues and competitors. 

They have a meet-cute story about how renowned winemaking consultant Michel Rolland began working with Saints Hills, his first and only Croatian project to date. Shortly after buying their first vineyard in 2007, Ernest saw the 2004 film Mondovino and decided Rolland—who the film casts in an unflattering light—would be the perfect person to help put their winery on the map. “After watching the movie, he said to all of us at Saints Hills, ‘I will get this guy to come to us, see the vineyards, and work with us,’” Ivana tells Robb Report. “It was the joke of the month, we laughed and teased him about it, which only strengthened his determination.” Ernest wrote a letter to Rolland, “a written letter, in an envelope, like in the ‘80’s,” Ivana explains, and asked a contact from Bordeaux to hand deliver it. Intrigued at the idea of working with indigenous grapes in a new-to-him region, Rolland called the Toljs a few weeks later and set up a visit. “Michel came, fell in love with Croatia, its wine and vineyards, and now the joke is on us,” Ivana says.

While the original Saints Hills winery near Split is now used for storage and administration, Ernest and Ivana built a new winery in Pelješac in 2011, which opened for visits in 2013, and their Istrian winery that houses a chic restaurant and boutique hotel first welcomed guests in May 2024. Vineyard holdings of just under 100 acres are spread across the Pelješac Peninsula near Dubrovnik, southern Dalmatia, and Istria. They also cooperate with a vineyard on the island of Korčula for Pošip, a crisp white grape. Offerings include wines made with Plavac Mali, Pošip, Zinfandel (a Croatian native), Chardonnay, Malvasia Istriana, Sauvignon Blanc, and Sémillon.

The latter two are blended in a wine called Frenchie which features a caricature of Rolland on the front and an irreverent back label dedicated to “all the Rollandisation, Globalisation, Parkerisation, and other B.S. stories.” It ends with the declaration, “You can feel free to F.O.” Ivana explains that since Rolland started working with them, people “who had not even tasted the wine” made comments about how all of his wines from around the world taste the same and that he couldn’t possibly understand Croatian wine. Having made a classic Bordeaux-style white blend, “The wine and the label were dedicated to all the haters who do not understand the concept of terroir and the importance of variety in winemaking,” she says. “It was an insider joke that turned out to be a good wine.”

It is this unconventional spirit and willingness to buck tradition that has made Saints Hills a success at home, in the United States, and across Europe. After working with small Croatian importers in the U.S. who sold their wine but were limited in their reach, Ernest and Ivana searched for an importer with a broad international portfolio that could diversify the types of restaurants and wine shops that carried Saints Hills. They struck gold with Massanois Fine Wines, which carries wine from 17 countries and has wide distribution. “We are now in more states, have some great new relationships with restaurants, wine shops, wine bars, and wine clubs that never had Croatian wine and now order it regularly,” Ivana says. Ernest adds, “Massanois is a great fit, they are dedicated to each of their wines in the same way we are, so they make a great partner.” Their connection with Massanois sounds as serendipitous as the letter Tolj wrote to Rolland. “One of the girls from Massanois team visited our winery on Pelješac with a friend before we were working together. She loved the wines and the story, so when we contacted them, she was already our ambassador,” he continues.

Thanks to its founders’ dedication and Massanois’s network, Saints Hills wines are found in fine dining establishments such as Daniel and Delmonico’s in New York City. They are not the only Croatians making excellent wine; wineries such as Matošević, Meneghetti, Fakin, and Kozlović have also made inroads into major markets like the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, and Scandinavia, but both Ernest and Ivana understand the importance of contact and education. They are constantly working the market and have brought the sales team from Massanois to Istria and Dalmatia to experience Croatian wine culture firsthand. The husband-and-wife team know that this is also a group effort on the part of their compatriots. “It is constant work of a group of our enthusiastic fellow Croatian winemakers,” Ernest says. The best part is that they have all helped to lead the way for one another. “When you come with your wine to someone who has already tasted Plavac Mali and liked it, the doors are wide open,” Ivana adds.

Croatian for “small blue,” which is the perfect description for its berries, Plavac Mali accounts for about 10 percent of all the vineyards in the country. It is considered by many to be Croatia’s most important grape, with the vineyards of Dingač on the Pelješac Peninsula near Dubrovnik said to offer the best terroir for its cultivation. It has thick skin and a high level of tannin, which Rolland says is “what are we looking for in a red wine” thanks to its “density and power as well as finesse and silkiness.” He points out, “Working with a native grape is always a real pleasure but also always challenging, so we have to find exactly the right ripeness and then utilize the right extraction.” He compares it to Cabernet Franc and Zinfandel—it is a parent of the latter—but finds that it has its own characteristics. “It is in itself a beautiful grape, growing nicely in the amazing Dingač soil.”

“Plavac Mali has very small yields and small berries, and its strong vines are resistant to extreme weather conditions that it has been subjected to during centuries in south Dalmatia,” Ernest Tolj explains. “At Saints Hills we do a lot of vineyard work, mostly by hand, to make it balanced and food friendly, to get the right results in terms of sugar, acidity and phenolic ripeness. This is very challenging, due to constant changes in summer temperatures, but it is also very rewarding.” Saints Hills makes three different levels: Black, which sells for $27, Dingač, which fetches $70, and the limited-edition Ernest Tolj, ET for short, which is made only in the best years using hand-selected grapes from the best vines, with only two barrels made each vintage. It retails for $137, with all the profits going to the Saints Hills for Kids foundation, which donates to charities benefiting children in need. You may not have tried Plavac Mali yet, but if Croatian power couple Ernest and Ivana Tolj have anything to do with it, that may change sooner than you think.