Grapes: Gruner Veltliner + Chardonnay + Riesling
Region: Moravia, Czech Republic
Vintage: 2019-2022
Viticulture: Organic (certified)
Soils: Loess + Clay + Loam
Vinification: Grapes are hand-harvested and sorted by hand. Foot-stomped, macerated overnight. 22 hours slow pneumatic press. Spontaneous fermentation, aged in new 3000L Stockinger oak barrel. Unfined, unfiltered, no added SO2. Bottled in November 2023.
Aging: stockinger oak barrels
Fining or Filtering: None
Sulfur: none
Notes from the Importer: Dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ hormonal messenger that is key to many processes in our body, was definitely released when we were making this wine. It’s an ode to my signature spontaneity and curiosity (some might say lack of plan, haha), solera born in one of our very first Stockinger barrels. At first, we started blending various white wines from our Slovenské plot that didn’t fit into their respective barrels, and then it became this game of ‘Stockinger Surprise,’ wine that we let live its own life without any projections about how it should taste. After 4 years of true no intervention, it’s at a wonderful stage and ready to go on your tables and comptoirs! Great value and perfect BTG material. Label spray-painted by yours truly.
The first vines that the Nestarec family started to work with grew on a tiny plot that was returned to them as restitution in the early 1990s. The winery went professional in 2001.
Milan’s father Milan Nestarec Sr. entrusted him with all the winemaking when Milan was barely 16 years old (which makes Milan quite an experienced young winemaker now at only 33 years of age)
The vineyards and cellar switched to organic and low intervention in late 2008, inspired by Milan’s multiple encounters with natural winemakers at home and abroad
The world discovered Nestarec wines partly thanks to the Mosel biodynamic pioneer Rudolf Trossen who found them interesting and kept sending people to the Nestarec tasting table at a natural wine fair in Cologne. Only later Milan discovered that this is what made him met his first importers
The current focus of the winery is to go to great lengths to care for old vineyards and keep the energy in the bottle
Milan is a real lover of Jura, fire-roasted sausages, and exchanges of ideas. “This is the real reason why I make wine – because it’s an incomparable vehicle to connect with interesting and/or like-minded people and creators. Such a social medium.”
Personality: My long-time Prague distributor Standa (of Veltlin.cz) enjoyed our recently released Dopamin & Postmoderna wines so much, that he suggested I find them a skin-contact sibling. I’m happy to oblige with this soft soft maceration—actually more of a whole bunch fermentation—of three recent vintages, aged together as solera in big barrel. It will probably make Standa even happier (although that wasn’t the main reason, it also happens to be my favourite white grape), the blend is based on Veltliner. An ode to finding joy in small everyday things. (And bottles.) Wine is supposed to make us feel good, right?
