Petr’s little sklep (the one with the stack of bottles and yellow horizontal basket press)
Throughout Central Europe there are little wine cellars, often centuries, sometimes millennia old. They are typically dug out spaces, naturally cool in the summer and warm in the winter where wine and vineyard equipment would be kept. They were also places to meet outside the home and drink wine with your friends. Organized in clusters or perhaps along the same hillside of a village, close proximity to other winemakers allowed for the sharing of equipment, work and wine. Pince in Hungarian, Pivnica in Slovakian, Klet in Slovenian, Sklep in Czech, they are all the same thing. Repositories of community, traditions (and microbes) where children would learn how to make wine from their grandparents.
Unfortunately, the opportunities for income are outside the villages and today the kids move to the city, after a few lost vintages the cellars become storage units. Despite even great neglect a little elbow grease and a few used barrels can be enough to restart production. Built for wine making, close to the vines, these cellars are inherently efficient and well suited for making high quality wine. Sometimes the Sklep calls the villager back. Petr Korab, located in the South Moravian village of Boleradice is our favorite example. After leaving his role as an attorney in Prague, Petr returned to his village to make wine in his familial Sklep. This humble but ideal space has nurtured his development while he slowly acquired vines, knowledge and an audience.
Boleradice, like much of South Moravia, is hilly with a diversity of primo soil that includes limestone, loess, clay and sand in various proportions and depths. North of Vienna, South of Prague, harvest can sometimes be a month later than much of Austria and Hungary. Awesomely, this gives the grape growers the opportunity to harvest grapes with phenolic ripeness, low sugar and high acid. Petr then applies his patented system of “controlled doing nothing” and boom, magic wine. In reality he is an attentive pupil of nature and has the patience and sensitivity to recognize that even natural interventions can be detrimental. Sensitivity is what we see most of all in his wines.
After 15 years Petr has decided to bless us with more of his amazing wine and built a proper winery. Proper because the building of it is informed by a philosophy of taste and production that he developed while working in his classical Southern Moravian sklep. His sklep taught him what to make. The new winery was built in service of these models so they can be developed further. He will be successful, others will learn from him and again the skleps will be full of wine and friends. Perhaps if you want to leave the US and have the bold desire to become a winemaker, South Moravia could be for you!