GERMANY & CZECH REPUBLIC

GERMANY & CZECH REP

WEINGUT IMMICH-BATTERIEBERG

GERNOT KOLLMAN, MIDDLE MOSEL, GERMANY

Situated around the town of Enkirch, Immich – MILAN NESTAREC After some time without them, we are bringing Batterieberg is known as one of the oldest estates of the Middle Mosel. Sadly, this precious heritage was almost lost in the last decades of the 20th century, at the expense of the sweet, generic style of Riesling, market back then. The recovery has only begun in 2009, with the arrival of a young and passionate winemaker Gernot Kollman. Having trained at prestigious Mosel houses of Dr Loosen, Weingut van Volxem and Knebel, he was more than ready to begin his personal project. In the area where all vineyard work must be done manually, converting to organic viticulture, was the first brave step Gernot took. “It’s a hard fight, but I believe it’s necessary. If you care about the soil, it will shine through” – he comments. Gernot is searching for purity and terroir expression. Uncompromising and honest in his winemaking, he refuses to chaptalize and de-acidify. Prolonged time his wines spend on the lees, minimises the need to use sulphur, which is applied in small doses and only at the bottling stage.

MILAN NESTAREC, MORAVIA, CZECH REPUBLIC

After some time without them, we are bringing back the “wild and wonderful” natural wines from Moravia, made by Milan Nestarec. This creative, young winemaker who started his project with 8 hectares of vines planted by his father in 2001, keeps evolving and fine tuning his range, while sticking to his principle of making low intervention wines which are bottled unfiltered and with little or no SO2 added. His staple white wine – Bel, in 2018 vintage was made with blend of Müller Thurgau, Grüner Veltliner and Welschriesling. One glass is never enough, hence it came to us in 1L bottle format.
We were also really impressed with both red and orange Forks and Knives 2018. The blends here have changed slightly, but in both cases the wines have the same thirst quenching profile with lively acidity and intriguing aromatics