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While the search for hidden treasure, pirates and their parrots are all things best left in the past, that doesn’t mean there isn’t treasure of another kind waiting for you. The treasure being wine, of course! The Pelješac peninsula in Croatia is home to Dingač Winery. In 2011, this winery was looking for a way to spice things up and decided to put bottles of wine under the sparkling blue Adriatic Sea.
After years of research, it was discovered that the best way to submerge the bottles under the sea was to put the wine in a glass bottle and then put clay amphora around it. Then the wine ages on the seafloor for 700 days before it’s ready to emerge on the surface. These bottles of wine, just waiting to be discovered, are called Navis Mysterium (The Sea Mystery) and create the first underwater winery. The winery places the bottles on a sunken fishing boat near Žuljana that has been occupying the area for over 30 years. Talk about out of the ordinary! There are also bottles on the seafloor near Dubrovnik.
If you’re an adventurous wine and sea lover, the winery plans supervised dives where you can see the Navis Mysterium bottles. You can either depart from Žuljana or Dubrovnik for a dive. There is a discovery diving tour or a regular diving tour out of Žuljana. In Dubrovnik, certified divers can go for one dive or uncertified divers can go for two dives - a training dive and a dive to the winery (equipment and transfer included). If you’d rather not dive for wine, you can still visit the Edivo Wine Bar in Drače.
While it certainly takes a lot more effort to visit this underwater winery, it offers an amazing opportunity for diving fans. Bust out the wetsuit and get ready to go on an adventure and dive for amazing treasure (also known as wine, but that’s such an ordinary term)!
