Ahearne Pošip 2018

With a career in wine spanning over 25 years, Londoner, Jo Ahearne Master of Wine has worked with iconic wineries and retail environments around the globe. She entered the wine trade in the early 1990s with Oddbins in Central London. And after two years went to Australia to work a vintage for Charles Melton, with his iconic Nine Popes and Rose of Virginia wines in the Barossa Valley. She passed her Master of Wine qualification in 2008. The Master of Wine qualification is notoriously difficult – only 396 people have the right to use the lauded letters M and W after their name. Ahearne now makes her own wine, Ahearne Vino, in Hvar, Croatia. Jo produces four wines – a rosé, Rosina, two whites (Pošip and a maceration wine, Wild Skins) and a barrique-aged Plavac Mali, South Side. ‘Wild Skins’ is a blend of three varieties found on the island of Hvar – Kuč, Bogdanuša and Pošip. The Bogdanuša (‘gift from God’) and Kuč vineyards are on the cooler northern part of Hvar on the Unesco-protected Ager plain which was first cultivated by the Greeks. Mainly on red soils. The Pošip is planted on the southern side just outside of the town of Hvar itself.