'I wandered towards the cobalt Adriatic inlet next to the vineyards and looked back

Everyone knows her as Bepa, though Josipa Marinov is her name: white hair, scrawny, nimble, energetic.

- ANDREW JEFFORD

Bent double to prune then, a moment later, straightening and standing upright, her hand shading her eyes from the sun. She called out to us, waving her secateurs. It was a sunny Saturday last June, mid-morning and hot already; she was out trimming the family's red Babić vines with her sons. In her 80s... but looking and sounding 20 years younger.

She'd spotted us coming up the path; I was with Croatia's leading wine writer Saša Špiranec and Leo Gracin, the professor of oenology at Split University. We'd just visited the fishing village of Primošten, with its waving tamarisk trees and white sand; Leo has his own vinarija cellar door there. Now we'd come down the coast; some of Leo's own vines were close by.

While they chatted, Bepa's laughter ringing in the air, I wandered towards the cobalt Adriatic inlet next to the vineyards and looked back. Garments aside, this same Saturday morning scene could have unfolded at any time over the last millennium.