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Ervin Drenški comes from Kostelsko, a village known for the Kostelska Pištola, a historic unit of Krapina-Zagorje County that has celebrated Easter for centuries by firing flintlock pistols made from walnut wood. Naturally, Ervin is also a member of the Kostelska Pištola, which at Easter 2025 held its Easter firing for the 502nd time, in honour of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This custom, ‘Easter pistol firing’, is also listed as part of Croatia’s intangible cultural heritage.
In Pregrada, says Josip Krog, president of the Kostelska Pištola, an old custom is upheld: when a son is born, ‘a flintlock pistol is placed under his pillow instead of money’.
– I think it’s perfectly natural that everyone from Kostelsko should be a member of that unit, as I am. For thirty-five years, I’ve carried on the tradition of Count Keglević’s guard, which, from 1523, when the Keglević family moved to Kostelgrad, guarded Christ’s tomb on the night between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, then celebrated Jesus’s resurrection with the pistols of the time upon leaving the church, Ervin Drenški says.
The Kostelska Pištola, he adds, makes at least thirty official appearances a year. They take part in town and municipality anniversary celebrations throughout the county, visit other historic units, and annually attend commemorations of the Day of Remembrance for Vukovar and Škabrnja and the Day of Remembrance for Rudolf Perešin. They also appeared at the inauguration of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and at the large military parade in Zagreb in 2015.
Interestingly, all that burnt gunpowder and those deafening volleys have not harmed Ervin’s hearing, or his companions’, in the slightest. On the contrary, Ervin is a trumpeter – and, as he says, ‘sings quite well, like the whole family’.
– Dad was always playing somewhere, so those commitments probably left him little time to give me a more serious introduction to music. But I made up for that with my son Martin, whom I was always driving to performances and rehearsals. He’s now finishing his studies at the Music Academy in Zagreb, Ervin says proudly.
His brother, he says, is also an excellent saxophonist, and his grandfather was a brilliant trumpeter. It is his grandfather’s nickname that distinguishes their family from the other Drenškis – they are called the Kraljicas, the Queens.
– That’s our family nickname. I’m the third generation of Kraljicas. My full name is Ervin Drenški Kraljica, Ervin laughs.
– Why Kraljica – Queen – rather than Kralj, King?
– After my grandfather, who supposedly committed some offence against Queen Theresa and ended up in prison. After him, my father, an outstanding musician, was called Kraljica too. Many thought the nickname came from his trumpet playing, but it didn’t, he explains.
His wine brand now bears the same name – Kraljica.
– There are many songs close to my heart, but ‘Oj, draga kletica’ – ‘Oh, Dear Little Vineyard Cottage’ – is particularly dear to me. It has everything: wine, the hillside, companionship and the passing of life, Ervin says, then quotes the lyrics:
There on a Zagorje hillside, by the old vineyard cottage,
We merry souls often gather.
Oh, dear little cottage and a fine drop of wine,
We love you, we cheerful folk of Zagorje.
Come into my arms, my darling, we shall kiss.
Why does this one life pass so quickly?
Oh, dear little vineyard cottage,
Listen to this song as it spreads across the hillside.
Why does this one life pass so quickly?
Oh, dear little vineyard cottage.
– You’re Queens rather than Kings, and now even your vineyard cottage is feminine?
– Ha-ha, perhaps I should quote ‘Moje Zagorje’ – ‘My Zagorje’ – by Sinovi Zagorja:
My Zagorje, where does your beauty come from?
What is it within you
That makes us proud?
Your wooden vineyard cottages shine more brightly
Than heavenly palaces,
Than the plains of Slavonia
And the Adriatic Sea.
In my heart, your star shines forever,
In my thoughts, always the image of dear Zagorje.
Let the tears in my eyes tell you everything,
How much you mean to me, my Zagorje.
In a distant world, you are an ache in my soul,
The shackles of loneliness tighten and choke me.
Wherever I go, I carry you within me.
You are my longing, my beloved land.
Ervin is a proud trumpeter because the trumpet has always been an important instrument in Zagorje bands.
– Until a few years ago, the trumpet and baritone horn were indispensable, because we’re all fond of Oberkrainer music, that Slovenian style. Unfortunately, lately Balkan folk-pop has begun taking over here too, which makes us Zagorje folk very sad, he says.
The brothers Slavko and Vilko Avsenik gave the world its finest introduction to the ‘Slovenian flavour’ of Zagorje music – legendary Oberkrainer musicians who entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most prolific folk ensemble of all time, with more than a thousand recorded songs and over thirty million records sold. Their ‘Na Golici’, or ‘Trumpet Echoes’, is still considered the world’s most performed instrumental piece.
When he is neither with the Kostelska Pištola nor holding a trumpet, Ervin is at Vetropack in Hum na Sutli, in the glass-bottle production plant.
– Yes, my job is right there in bottle production. The machines almost never stop; there are never enough bottles, he laughs.
– At least you can get bottles for your own winery at a better price?
– Not a chance! Not only do I get no discount, I buy the bottles through an intermediary, Pavin. Vetropack doesn’t sell to small producers, Ervin explains.
For now, he has no plans to leave his job.
– That’s my goal in two or three years, when my son finishes the academy and sees where life will take him. Perhaps one day he’ll come to the vineyard too. I also have a younger son, so I’ll see where his interests lead him, he says.
Ervin shares his surname with Boris Drenški – Bodren, the world-famous master of predicate wines.
– Boris and I share a surname and are practically neighbours, but we aren’t related. He’s internationally successful with predicate wines, which is a real miracle in this region. But interestingly, my family planted vineyards long before he did. Boris created everything himself, while I inherited my path in wine, Ervin says.
– Where would you place yourself on Zagorje’s wine map?
– I’m still new, just starting out. I sell my wines in five local cafés – in Hum na Sutli, Pregrada and the surrounding area – and I’m happy with that. I’m not aiming for large-scale production. I’m fitting out a cellar with a tasting room, and I want to stay connected to this area, from Pregrada and Hum na Sutli to Krapina and Zabok, he says.
He mainly makes mixed-variety wines, typically Zagorje in character and suited to gemišt – wine mixed with sparkling water.
– I supply four or five pubs with wine. That’s the typical old Zagorje school of winemaking. It’s how my grandfather and father worked too. Five years ago, I also began making varietal wines – starting with Riesling, then Pinot Gris, Yellow Muscat, Graševina and Cabernet Sauvignon. Today I have five labels.
His first varietal wine, a Riesling, won gold at the regional competition in Pregrada.
– All the associations present their wines in Pregrada, and if you do well here, you go on to Bedekovčina. Pregrada is the qualifying round. And I won gold for that wine in Bedekovčina too.
– That encouraged me to keep going, Ervin says candidly.
Ervin says nobody in his household is an oenologist or has trained for the job: ‘Winemaking is something we love and do from the soul!’
– When I taste wines at a fair from large wineries with teams of experts, then compare them with what I’ve made on my own, I feel proud.
His given name, he says, is a kind of tribute to his father.
– Dad worked in Germany in a car factory and named me Ervin – a name of German origin, from heri, warrior, and win, friend. It means ‘friend of the army’ or ‘protector of the army’. I suppose I’ve proved that to him in the Kostelska Pištola, Ervin laughs.
Today, alongside the sound of his trumpet and the scent of wine, he is also restoring an old 1989 Mercedes 190. When that car, like so many of his memories, shines once again on Zagorje’s roads, it will be another symbol of the tenacious Zagorje tradition Ervin carries within him.
