Indie Vineyard

Story · Prlekija

The vineyard next door.

We came home to Prlekija — Mikan, Aida, and our daughter — and found a left-behind vineyard waiting beside our rented house. This is the last season. Then ten bottles. Then we begin again.

Home

We came back to where we began.

A young family. A rented house. Hills full of vines.

The small house we rent in our home village
home · for now

We are Mikan, Aida, and our daughter — a young family who left the city and came home. Back to the village where we were born and raised. We rent a small house here, and every morning the same green hills open out in front of us.

Prlekija

Open map
here · Prlekija

This is Prlekija. Vine country. Rows climb the slopes, cottages sit in the sun, and grapes still decide how autumn smells. We did not move somewhere new. We returned to the place that already knew us.

The vineyard

Beside our house, a vineyard was waiting.

Right next to us lies a vineyard that was left behind. The owner died. The work stopped. For about five years almost no one stepped into those rows — and still the vines kept growing, quieter and wilder each season.

Neighbors feel it. Clearing a sick vineyard takes time nobody wants to give. So the parcel sat there: close enough to see from our window, heavy enough that no one wanted to be the one who starts.

We decided we would. Not because it is easy — because it is next to our home, because it touches the people around us, and because someone has to show up before this last season ends.

next door · as it is now

The sickness

Rumenica is in these vines — and it does not stay put.

The vineyard is sick with rumenica. It moves. That is the hard truth for everyone living beside it: if the plot stays untouched, the problem does not politely stop at the fence.

Vines in Prlekija
vines · everywhere

The grapes themselves are strange and honest. They are sick, yet you can still eat them. For five years almost nothing was sprayed here — no pesticides — so in that way they are clean, almost bio by accident. They are just not so sweet. Nature kept working. Nobody polished it.

This will be the last season of this vineyard. Too many vines are sick. After the harvest, it has to come out — so the spread can stop, and so this hillside can begin again.

Last pour

Ten bottles. That is all.

Before the vines come out, we will make one last wine from this place — and only ten bottles. Each one a limited piece, carrying a sponsor who stands with us.

This project is how we try to live a little from people who believe in the work: something for the community around us, something for the sponsors who help, and the money toward building our new home — maybe even seeding a new vineyard here when the ground is ready again.

Hills and vines in Prlekija
one last season

Indie Vineyard

We are not selling perfect wine. We are telling the truth.

We will say it plainly. Because of the sickness, this wine may not be the finest pour you have ever tasted. There is nothing wrong with it — and in one quiet way it is even better: it grew without pesticides. Still, the heart of Indie Vineyard is not a tasting score. It is the story of a family that came home, a vineyard left behind, and a last season done with care.

Quality still matters in Prlekija. We grew up knowing that. We will not pretend this bottle is something it is not — and we will not let honesty become an excuse to look away.

So this is why we are here: to take care of what sits beside our rented house, to help the people around us, to close these rows the right way, and to build a little of what comes next — together with anyone who wants their name on one of the ten.

Prlekija hills
what comes next