As tiny part of the Mediterranean tale, Istria has been interwoven with rich wine tradition handed down by ancestors. Scripts written by Greek and other ancient authors testify that winemaking had flourished during the Roman times (177 B.C. - 476 A.D.) and according to some preserved manuscripts, it would seem even in the pre-Roman period.

In the Raša Bay, close to the village of Rakalj, spreads an area known as Kalavojna, meaning «good wine» in Greek (kalos oinos). This would confirm the hypothesis that Greek merchant ships sailed into our ports supplying themselves with «fine wine».

The Roman author Plinius the Older (23 – 79 A.D.) in his historic work Historiarum mundi speaks highly of the wine «vinum Pucinum» claiming that the empress Livia had lived to be 82, thanks to this particular wine. Plinius refers to an Istrian hinterland, by some authors; this could very well have been in the Motovun and Buzet hill-side.

Throughout the Middle Ages, muscat wine from Istria had been frequently referred to as a delicacy ending on royal tables. The economic importance of wine has changed from the gloomy periods of warfares and epidemics, when in most cases, the wine had been kept in the background, up to the good times, when wine finally has taken the place it deserves in the lives of ordinary people.
And another important thing derives from that time, namely malmsey.Back then,Venice used to trade with the wines from Levant, Peloponnesus, Cyprus and Crete, wherefrom the first wine grapes of malmsey used to arrive.

Subsequently, in the epoch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, wine started to regain significance on the Istrian peninsula – over thirty thousand hectares of vineyards had been planted. But these are the times of pestilence called filoxera, the vineyards wasted away and are being replanted...... and thus up to the modern times.