MAGIC OF THE “OLD DAYS“

14. April 2014.

Winery owners, agronomists Ljubisa Stosic from Rakovac and Dusan Janjic from Leskovac, named their wine cellar after Bora Stankovic’s famous short story the “Old Days.”

In 2005, they took the first vineyards, through an auction, from the failed “Poljoprodukt” company from Vranje, which were situated in an area of 18 hectares in Vranje’s village of Pavlovac.

“We rebuilt the vineyards, invested a great deal into them, produced our first wine in 2007, which caused a great joy, and then came an even greater disappointment. At the second auction, which was held in the same year, we lost them. It's then that we decided that we would begin to grow our own vineyard. We invested all the money and savings that we had had, as well as the loaned 30, 000 euros, into a new start. We knew that there was church land on the outskirts of the village of Lopardince, which is just outside of Bujanovac, which was ideal for vineyards. We contacted the parish priest of the “Saint Paraskeva” church in Rakovac, which owned the land, and then the Vranje Eparchy. We leased 13.5 hectares of land for 30 years. We immediately accepted the cost of the lease, as we believe that one shouldn’t haggle with the church, because winegrowing is “God's work”. Saint Tryphon must constantly be with wine-growers, to watch over them, so that winegrowing could be done “through God and man”, said Dusan Janjic.

In the period from 2007 to 2010, they begun growing a vineyard on the church property, and then they bought another vineyard, and then 12 acres of land in Leskovac’s village of Zivkovo , so that they currently have a total of 26.5 acres of land under vineyards.

And they won’t stop there. They’ll continue purchasing land and growing new vineyards.

“80 per cent of the annual production of grapes is for sales, while 20 per cent is for wine production. That means that we annualy sell 150 tons of grapes and produce 30. 000 liters of wine. The main purchasers of our grapes are the “Radosavljevic” winery from Krnjevo, the “Aleksic” winery from Vranje and ”To the End of the World” winery from Kovilje, said Ljubisa Stosic.

They made their dream come true and also engaged their family members into their work, so that they rightfully expect their sons and daughters to become successors of family tradition and develop the “Old Days” winery.

They have won gold and silver medals and received diploma at the prestigious national competitions both in our country and abroad. They also received a silver medal for their “Dert” (“Trouble”) wine in Prague, the Czech Republic.

Source : OK RADIO and the Coordination Body