Over a summer, two travelers drink their way through the wines of Mediterranean Europe          The wineries of Sviličić and Roki's are two of the many small producers on Vis along the Wine Route. They are working to grow their production capacity without stunting the quality of their wines. Obviously this is not an easy goal, but they both have long family traditions on the island that should give them a foundation for making this possible.     Starting 10 years ago, Sviličić has been producing from two of his own hectares. Out of this, he produces 10,000 liters a year, of which 70% is white. We first tried his white, the 2006 Vugava. It has a good deal of fruit to the nose. The body sparkles a bit more than other Vugavas that we tried and there is a delicious touch of apple in the body. The finish pulls out very smoothly. From there, we tried his 2006 Plavac. It is a much more dry version of the wine than we're used to. You can even smell the dryness in the nose, as well as some good berry aromas. The finish comes out well enough, but the wine overall is probably best for real Plavac aficionados.     A bit down the road is Roki's, which is a winery and restaurant combination. We talked to the owner's wife, Valerie who is an expat from Australia that has lived on Vis with her Croatian husband since 1976. The house where they are making their wine is about 100 years old and the family has been producing wine at varying levels this entire time. They produce from their own four hectares of wine as well as buy grapes from their neighbors.     They make several different wines including a Plavac, a table level red, and Vugava. We only tasted the white Vugava 2006 and found it to have a light, quiet, fruity nose. The body had some rather enjoyable honey tones to it and it all cleaned up in to a crisp finish.     These two wine makers are indicative of many on the island of Vis. After decades of geographic and military isolation, they are all starting to grow and produce more. You can taste it in a flight of different years that they're having to understand their land again after the vines declined for years. With large-scale planting of Plavac Mali and other grapes on the island, they will undoubtedly be producing some signature reds in the years to come.

Over a summer, two travelers drink their way through the wines of Mediterranean Europe          PZ Podšpilje is one of those anomalies from the former Communist period in Former Yugoslavia. Despite being a central collective for the grapes in this area of Vis since 1924, it was never actually a state-owned collective like others that we've visited. Even though is was free from Communist oversight, it still maintains the rather heavy Socialist look to the building that makes it none too welcoming, although the people who work there are very friendly and were happy to see us. This is not surprising given the almost complete isolation that Vis lived under for decades.     Showing us around and giving an introduction to the wines was Roki Srećko, the general manager. He also happened to be the enolog, which gave him a bit more character than the standard managers that we have often talked to. While they produce 300,000 liters a year from the 60 hectares that they source from, he only has about six people to manage all of this. We quickly got down to the business of wine and tasted their offerings.     First was the 2005 Plavac. It's quite a light wine and has slight berry aromas to the nose. The body is rather dry and typical of a standard Plavac that way, but even still the wine carries a great deal of freshness to it that is pleasing. Form there, we moved to the 2006 Plavac, which was less dry and had more fruit. The body was a bit more meaty and had a smoother finish. These two growing years were rather similar, so a good deal of these differences were probably from one wine being younger and the 2006 will probably shift more to the 2005 characteristics with time.     We also tried their 2005 white called, Vugava. The nose is best described as wooden. Despite this, the body is light and easy to drink. As the wine gets more air in it, a soft, fuzzy fruit develops in to the nose that then grows in the body as well. All of this cleans up with a nice clean finish.     Their strongest wines were definitely the Plavacs and given that about 80% of their production is based in that, we think they're on track to produce some good wines that more people will know about in time.