[Kosirich]

I've worked in a vineyard for a Summer in Croatia Which region of Croatia if you don't mind me asking? My family has a vineyard (800 liters, for our personal consumption) so I know the hassle you are talking about. From what I can tell there has been some advancement regarding automation in the area of vine making over the past years with tractor attachments that allow automatic and precise spraying of fungicides as well as machines that automatically pick the grapes (shake,comb and vacuum). By that I mean, that it has become available even to smaller-medium producers as I see people using it. As you probably know, a lot of what a winemaker does is adaption of the vineyard to seasonal conditions by adjusting variety and quantity of spraying with (usually) fungicides, reducing the leaves and reducing the grapes (in order to increase overall sugar and quality). This variation would be something that would be reduced using greenhouse/indoor growing.

[Melting_Harps]

> a Which region of Croatia if you don't mind me asking?

Bok, dobro dan:

Umag professionally, and then the countryside in Zagreb to help a friend and her village harvest later that year and begin the wine and olive oil pressing.

It took a whole village of maybe 25 rotating of various ages people to do both orchards and it was rather small, maybe 2 heactres each? But we were casual and stopped to eat and dink, chat and nap.

Whereas the one in Umag was back breaking slave labour as it was way larger ~20 hectares broken up into various fields depending on cultivar, as they mainly focused on white wine based grapes we sold by the bottle at the nearby campsite and at bio markets/stores, they had some other fruit for rakija. But it was me and an another guy who were the only apprentices in a staff of 4 plus the 3 owners who mainly focused on sales and very light field work in the mornings so me and the other guy each worked 13-16 hour days back then 6 days a week and a lot of that was just pruning leaves and unripened grapes and adjusting the vineyards to the trellis which is what made that farm most of its money. I'm glad I made the pivot to Italy when I did as I preferred to work in gardens and develop a menu and then run the kitchen for an Agrotourism in Maranello! Those 16-18 hour days were much more better spent in my opinion.

One day in Croatia the other guy in Umag was out taking care of the tomato fields and I was actually spraying the copper and Organic/Bio fungicide mixture with the blower machine in the red field and making my way to the white when I saw the plume of a bomb go off that contained sulfide in a neighbors much larger field nearby, which typically was used for low-end wines that give you headaches or were used for gemišt, and I had to run like hell to avoid getting sprayed on as that stuff hurts when you inhale it. I actually left the blower behind until the sky air cleared.

> As you probably know, a lot of what a winemaker does is adaption of the vineyard to seasonal conditions by adjusting variety and quantity of spraying with (usually) fungicides, reducing the leaves and reducing the grapes (in order to increase overall sugar and quality).

I know the farm-hands (like me back then) do that, the winemaker is usually the owner who seldom does much of the labour in my experience besides occasionally walk the fields and prepare the barrels and bottles in my experience during harvest. And he usually has an apprentice(s) do much of that as they're usually much older.

> This variation would be something that would be reduced using greenhouse/indoor growing.

How so? The vines are permanent once planted and are dormant in the Fall-late Spring in most wine making regions, so that is money you're losing because you cannot grow other crops, moreover from my limited experience on those farms the roots underneath need to have be really established before you're able to get any reasonable yield as the first years/decade is always going to be so-so vintages as the soil and microbiology underneath creates the taste you're looking for and is altered with time--different types of compost, more sand-soil ratios etc... These are all losses if greenhouse spaces is built for that end alone instead of fast-growing, low input things like salads and herbs in the winter and early planted nightshades in the early Spring to capture the higher premium on being first to Market.

Again, I don't know how the lack of restaurants is going to alter all of this, to be honest.

[Kosirich]

Cool. My family has a vineyard in the central part of Istria. In our case we do everything ourselves, but I know that professionals use hired hands, both documented and undocumented ones. We stooped using the copper sulfate for the exactly reasons you describe. My dad (who does most of the work) has a somewhat allergic reaction to it so he tries to compensate with other stuff. BTW, it seems that you have quite a nice success story there although the begging of it is quite familiar to many of us from Croatia. (low wage, s*ity bosses, shady working conditions) I see your point with the greenhouse. You are right, thinking in terms of output per square meter, it doesn't makes sense to have anything that is dormant and doesn't produce a stable revenue, unless it's something very specific for which the market (customer) is prepared to pay a huge amount. Considering the region we are talking about, the thing that pops in my mind and falls in the super-high return category is the truffle. (and they are trying!)

[Melting_Harps]

> BTW, it seems that you have quite a nice success story there although the begging of it is quite familiar to many of us from Croatia. (low wage, s*ity bosses, shady working conditions)

It made me who I am today, and I'm very thankful; but I still have friends in Croatia and I understand the plight well, such that I do want to move back to Dalamatia but only on the basis that I have secured remote work as I refuse to ever work locally again. Croatia is lovely place to live provided you don't have to work there, or at least depend on it as you major source of income, that's for sure.

> Considering the region we are talking about, the thing that pops in my mind and falls in the super-high return category is the truffle. (and they are trying!)

It's funny, I ran a kitchen in Lovran overlooking the Adriatic before I worked in those farms/agrotourisms and used to buy black truffles at a discount since there were so many and most restaurants in the area were closed for the season by November especially if I didn't need them to be fresh to garnish/finish a dish: and were used soups, stocks, bases etc...

The thing about truffles is that it really depends on how well you can make them travel to get into the hands of chefs in as short of time as possible, but again after COVID the culinary Industry may never be the same. And I don't care who you are and what kitchen you came from but I can't think of a single professional chef/cook who would buy black truffles, let alone white, on a weekly/monthly basis for cooking at home so the lack of demand would vastly reduce the price even if it could be actively cultivated instead of foraged in the Forest as it is now.

Personally speaking, I'm not that big of a fan as the black ones always tasted like very good garlic to me, I never got to use white truffles as I missed the season and only made rissoto from the rice they use to carry them in which was good but not worth the price, in my opinion.

And truffle oil is an abomination.