The Czech Winery of the Year 2022 is located in the village of Březí near Mikulov in South Moravia and almost on the border with Austria. “Nowadays winemakers don’t just do what people want anymore. It’s good that they stopped making sweet pálava,” claims its owner Jindřich Kadrnka.
Jindřich Kadrnka has been dealing with vines since childhood. His great-grandfather already planted the first hectare of vineyards when he moved to the village of Březí near Mikulov in South Moravia, almost at the Austrian border, after the Second World War. But as his great-grandson tells, it was more about gardening. “After 1968, each family received 10 ares of vineyards and fields. But we were a larger family, so four families made wine in the cellar,” Kadrnka explains.
Although Jindřich is the fourth generation to produce wine, he was the only one who began to professionalize the family tradition. “When my grandfather and father handed it over to me in 2001, half of the cellar was full of potatoes, beets and pumpkins, and the other half was filled with demijohns and old barrels,” recalls the smiling forty-year-old. So he began to gain experience while working in neighboring wineries, as well as in Austria, and in 2009 the first bottle came out of his production. “Until then, I delivered wines in barrels, or interested parties came with their own demijohn, for example,” he says.
From the original few dozen ares of vineyards, Kadrnka now farms 11 hectares. He then processes the harvested wine in the newly built premises in the backyard of the family house and produces 50,000 liters of it annually. As he himself admits, this is the ceiling he is able to reach at the moment, and that is enough for him.
“My dream is to build a winery directly on the vineyard, but the time is not very favorable for that,” he explains, adding that today it is a complication to request a building permit, moreover, on protected land. “On the other hand,” he points out, “I hope that it will be successful in the generation after me. My goal is to get the project off the ground, to at least have the place. In the surrounding countries where wine is grown, each generation has left a mark. However, in the Czech Republic there is most winemakers are still the first to build everything. And it’s not just the previous regime that’s to blame, it was one of several major changes over the past hundred years.”
“Either it tastes good or it doesn’t. No science.”
The tasting room on the ground floor of the family home, where he invites visitors, is full of photos with his friends. The corridor behind the bar leads directly to the wine cellar. The ceiling above the illuminated bar counter is decorated with a number of suspended wine glasses, below it is a disassembled engine from a tractor, which serves as a stand for the wine bottles themselves. He just opened one and pours a glass for tasting.
Photo: Tomáš Vocelka
“Nothing, only if you like it,” he replies to the ironic question of what evaluation is expected from an ignorant person after the first sip of wine.
“A lot of people do science around wine. The basis for me when tasting is first the color that I see. Do I like its color? So I smell it. Does it smell? I myself was worried, I didn’t know what I should smell in wine. Perhaps the most important thing is to create a bank of tastes and aromas in yourself. It’s like with fruits and vegetables, and wine is fruit, fruity notes come out of it. Czech wines are just fruity , fresh and with acid. There is some form of fruit in them, but it depends on what the taste reminds us of,” he explains.
Jindřich does not think that the stereotype of “ignorant Praguers” is still alive today in South Moravia, according to him, people can find much more information about wine than before. “When I do tastings, it’s no longer a lecture, but a discussion. I think the prejudices against the people of Prague have been stirred up by films like Berries, Winemakers and others. And what’s more, sometimes people from Prague are more surprised by knowledge than Brňák.”
The Jindřich Kadrnka winery today produces wines of three categories – K2, K3 and K4. But as the winegrower points out, these are not differences in quality. While K2 refers to dry, fresh, lighter and fruity wines from younger vineyards, K3 is already more opulent, juicy wines with a combination of young and older vineyards. The trio is covered by K4, i.e. mature, mineral wines from more than 30-year-old vineyards and aged for two to three years in wooden barrels and concrete eggs.
Enough of the sweet fever
Not only for specific wines, but also for previously unseen production methods in the Czech Republic, the family business earned victory in the 13th edition of the Vinozoom Winery of the Year competition, and in addition, it took first place in the small winery category in three categories, including the absolute winner of the competition. This year, students of viticulture and winemaking from Mendel University in Brno also participated in the evaluation, and the winery received the highest rating from them as well.
Photo: Tomáš Vocelka
Kadrnka would like the Czech Republic to have its own wine identity. “We know what to expect from wine from Champagne, from Bordeaux. When I say Wachau, Riesling and Veltlin come to mind, New Zealand and Australia have their sauvignons. But the Czech Republic has pelmel of all kinds. I would like us to be associated with Vlašák and Pálava . We have a chance to give the world something incomparable,” he declares.
Jindřich Kadrnka mainly enjoys dry wines, but he does not disdain sweeter ones either. To some extent. “It’s a good thing that Czech winemakers stopped making sweet pálava. It was affected for a long time. Whoever didn’t have sweet wine in the cellar, it’s as if he didn’t. Fortunately, today this trend is disappearing and winemakers realize that they have their clientele and they will always sell their wines. Many winemakers also understood that we are not rivals, but colleagues. So we no longer take reactions to our wines as slander, but as constructive criticism. And those who understood this have grown enormously in quality in a few years. I think we should all focus on what we do best, not being afraid to experiment and profile ourselves.”
In the future, Kadrnka would like to focus on Riesling and Wallachian, which already make up 75 percent of production. The rest will be complemented by pálava, red merlot and sparkling wines.
The potential of the Pálava Hills
From the family house in Březí, we move by car to the vineyards next to the village, on Ořechová hora, where part of the Kadrnk vineyards are located. Although he admits that grapevines are relatively resistant to adverse weather, he is more concerned about fruit trees. “Apricots and peaches will hardly be on the bun this year,” he interjects between talking behind the wheel, noting that the morning temperatures have dropped to minus seven degrees below zero in recent days. According to Kadrnka, the last frost that damaged the vineyards was five years ago.
Photo: Tomáš Vocelka
“Resilience is also about the condition of the vineyard. When a vine dies, we immediately plant a new one in its place. It prolongs its life. But working with the soil is also important, we do deep loosening and fertilize with cow and chicken manure,” he points out.
“What dry?” repeats the question. “It is, but the vine will find water. Natural stress is also important for it, but I’ve never had to think about drip irrigation. Hell, when they’re dry, we have to reduce yields, but we mustn’t lose the vine. The yield that year just won’t be most important.”
Kadrnka hopes that the entire Ořechová hora will function in the bio-mode in the future. He also shares the vast vineyards with his neighbors, each of them has its own vineyards marked with a sign on the columns. “It is not possible for me to grow organically, but my neighbor uses herbicides. There is a large-scale grower nearby who does it that way. A protective zone of two kilometers would be ideal, otherwise the chemical treatment will reach our vineyards downwind.”
It is windy at the top of Ořechová hora, but this hill above Březí offers Pálavské vrchy and Mikulov like in the palm of your hand. “It annoys me when I see transshipments, warehouses and gas stations being built on fertile fields, while here it is a problem to build a winery in a vineyard,” Jindřich shrugs.
“The potential is over there, where the PLA sign is,” he points in the direction of the symbol of South Moravia. “The hillsides could be a combination of vineyards, orchards and colorful fruit plantations, as is the case abroad. Gas stations and warehouses are fleeting, but vineyards are a legacy to future generations,” he adds.
