Exactly three years ago, a graft from the world's oldest city grapevine was planted in the Botanical Garden of the Institute for Genetic Resources in Banja Luka.
Our friends from Maribor donated a grapevine graft to Banja Luka that has been growing in Maribor for over 400 years and is still bearing fruit. The ceremony of planting the vine was attended by H.E. Damijan Sedar, Consul of the Republic of Slovenia in Banja Luka Mr. Boris Jelovšek, Mayor of Banja Luka Mr. Draško Stanivuković, representatives of the city of Maribor, representatives of the University and Institute for Genetic Resources from Banja Luka, and members of the "Triglav" Banja Luka Association. The city winegrower, Mr. Stanislav Kocutar, stated that he was extremely happy that the grapevine graft from Maribor is spreading all over the world and that this is the 95th the place where it was planted.
We were curious to see how our "Maribor vine" feels here, whether it likes our soil, air and climate in general. Is it happy with the environment in which it grows? A small team, Ivan, Ziza and I set out to find it out. A sunny day, ideal for spending time in nature. We were pleasantly surprised, the Botanical Garden was full of flowers. As if on a floral carpet, we moved towards our vine. The surroundings were fairytale-like, and right across the vine was a large bench. We sat on it and watched with pleasure the beautiful, healthy, green leaves and tendrils that were about to be caught and attached to the wire. We were happy to see that the vine had quite a lot of fruit. The results of the inspection were more than good, we were satisfied and wished our vine to grow even better in its new habitat.
Banja Luka, May 2026
Ljiljana Memon
