In the heart of California’s Central Valley, where the sun beats down with the intensity of a thousand hair dryers and the air is thick enough to chew, is Ziveli Winery — a Croatian-inspired oasis in a sea of raisins and table grapes. It’s like someone took a slice of the Adriatic coast, plopped it down in the middle of Fresno, and said, “Let’s see what happens.”

John Nale, the mastermind behind this grape escape, didn’t just stumble into winemaking like a frat boy into a keg party. No, this was a journey steeped in family tradition, with roots deeper than a philosophy major’s late-night conversations. As John puts it, with all the pride of a man who’s just discovered his family tree is actually a grapevine, “My mom’s side of the family comes from Croatia. We still have a lot of family back there.”

Back in 2006, John’s parents decided to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary by dragging the entire Nale clan back to the motherland. It was like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” but with more consonants and stronger drinks. Little did they know this family vacay would ferment into a full-blown winery obsession faster than you can say “Na zdravlje!”

Croatian Hospitality: Wine for Breakfast

“They would show up at our little hotel room every morning, about 7 or 8, and they’d pick us up and they’d want us to come and drink the wine that, you know, Uncle Joey made, or Uncle Jimmy, or all that whole crew,” John recalls.

The Croatian matriarchs were running covert still operations, their own Mediterranean Moonshine. “The wives, they had little stills, and they would distill the wine, and turn it into brandy. And to the brandy, they would put, I mean, we’re talking rose petals, or all the herbs, you know, the cherries, the peaches. They had this wonderful, wonderful brandy.”

Wonderful brandy, indeed. We’re talking concoctions that could strip paint and were packed with flavor. One sip, and you’d swear you’d found the secret to eternal youth — or at least a guaranteed good time and a hangover that would make Rasputin wince.

Bringing the Balkan Spirit to California

When the Nale offspring returned stateside, they were buzzing with more than just residual sugar and duty-free purchases. “My children, when they came home, they were like, ‘Dad, we have to start doing this.’ ”

And thus, Ziveli Winery was conceived, its name a Croatian toast meaning “Cheers” — because nothing says “I respect my heritage” quite like naming your business after a drinking salutation.

Nale wasn’t exactly a newbie to the world of grapes. He’d been growing them for years, mostly for raisins and the occasional winery sale. But this was different. This was personal. This was about capturing lightning — or at least some decent fermented grape juice — in a bottle.

A Viticultural United Nations in Fresno

So, Nale did what any self-respecting wannabe vintner would do: he planted a viticultural United Nations. “We planted a row of varietals of wine grapes, 11 different varieties, and we started there,” he explains. It was a veritable Noah’s Ark of vitis vinifera, each row a different grape screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!”

But among this vinous variety pack, one grape stood out: Alicante Bouschet. As John describes it, with the reverence usually reserved for religious relics or vintage cars, “It’s got red juice, red flesh, and red meat. And so, when you pop that grape, it’s like blood. It’s a wonderful wine.” In other words, it’s the vampiric Dracula of grapes — if Dracula had decided to retire to a sunny vineyard instead of a gloomy castle.

Pre-Prohibition, this grape was more popular than bathtub gin at a speakeasy. But somewhere along the line, it fell out of favor. Nale decided to bring sexy back to Alicante Bouschet. And it worked.

The Art of Clean Winemaking

But making wine isn’t just about growing grapes and hoping for the best. It’s about precision, cleanliness, and a touch of OCD. Nale learned quickly that bad grapes in means bad wine out.

“If we start with bad fruit, we do not have the machinery to clean it up,” John warns, with all the gravity of a man who’s learned this lesson the hard way. “So that juice is already tainted.” It’s like trying to make a gourmet meal out of gas station sushi — no amount of fancy preparation is going to save you from a date with the porcelain throne.

So, he insists on hand-picking every grape, a process more meticulous than a surgeon performing brain surgery with tweezers. Any grape showing even a hint of rot gets tossed. It’s grape natural selection, Darwin-style. “The key is to be clean, clean grapes in, and then once they’re in, you’ve got to keep them clean,” he emphasizes.

This fastidiousness pays off. No need for fancy machinery or high-tech wizardry — just good old-fashioned attention to detail and a healthy fear of volatile acids. Because let’s face it, the only thing volatile in a winery should be the owner’s temper during harvest season.

Ziveli’s Diverse Wine Lineup

Nale’s wine lineup is more diverse than the cast of a Mediterranean soap opera. He’s got big, bold reds that’ll make your taste buds stand up and salute, whites crisper than freshly ironed linen, and everything in between.

There’s the River Trio, a white blend that’s fruitier than Carmen Miranda’s hat but drier than Oscar Wilde’s wit. It’s a mash-up of Roussanne, Viognier, and just a whisper of Orange Muscat —  because three’s company, four’s a crowd, and two’s just boring.

Then there’s the Rosé, a Provence-style pink that’s got more attitude than a teenager at a family dinner. “It’s a Provence style. It’s acidic. It’s bright,” John boasts, probably while mentally high-fiving himself. It’s the kind of wine that makes burly men who “only drink reds” question their life choices and their masculinity in one sip.

And let’s not forget the Tempranillo that tastes like someone liquefied a maple tree and added a shot of awesome. There’s Cabernet Sauvignon smoother than a con man’s sales pitch, and Zinfandel because, let’s face it, what’s a California winery without Zin?

Nale’s approach to wine tasting notes is refreshingly baloney-free. None of this “hints of cigar box and leather with a finish of unicorn tears” nonsense. “I try not to give people notes,” he admits.  “There’s 10,000 different tastes, and that molecule is probably in every one of these bottles.” It’s wine tasting for people who don’t want to feel like they need a Ph.D in pretentiousness to enjoy a glass of fermented grape juice.

But don’t let this laid-back attitude fool you. Nale’s serious about his wines. He’s even trying to get his hands on authentic Croatian grape varieties, working with UC Davis to import vines that are native Croatian. He’s trying to recreate his ancestral homeland, one grape at a time.

Ziveli: A Love Letter to Croatia in Every Bottle

In the end, Ziveli Winery is a love letter to Croatia, a family legacy bottled and corked, and a snub to the notion that you need to be in Napa or Sonoma to make great wine.

As John puts it, with all the confidence of a man who’s found gold in his backyard, “The beautiful thing about Fresno is that Fresno can grow pretty much anything.”

It’s proof that with enough passion, attention to detail, and a healthy disregard for convention, you can make magic happen anywhere — even in the sweltering heart of Fresno.

So next time you’re in the neighborhood, swing by Ziveli. Raise a glass with John Nale, and remember: in vino veritas, but in Ziveli, there’s a whole lot more than just truth in that bottle. There’s history, family, and a dash of Croatian crazy that makes life worth savoring. A sip of the Mediterranean in the Central Valley.

Živjeli!

Extended Play: Ziveli Winery

About the Author

GV Wire Producer Dean Kirkland is the founder and director of Gas and Gears, an independent film production company that has produced numerous television series and feature films, including the award-winning documentary “Racing Through The Forest” (2014).