(Manfred Klimek / Editorial team)
Natural wines no longer need a justification text. They need context. And that is precisely what Moravia is currently providing like scarcely any other region in Europe. Between Znojmo, Mikulov and the hills of Kraví Hora, a wine landscape has been emerging for a good ten or fifteen years—not out of protest against conventional, industrial wines, but from a desire for the precision of the new, curiosity and astonishing drinkability. Natural wine not as an alternative model, but as something genuinely its own.
Two names exemplify this: Milan Nestarec and Martin Vajčner.
Milan Nestarec has long been an established figure on the international natural wine scene—because of his Kleter consistency. Nestarec’s wines often seem playful, sometimes almost ironic, yet in the glass they are remarkably serious. Reduction in the cellar, old vines, plenty of time, hardly any intervention. What emerges are wines with an inner tension that speak less about fruit than about texture, temperature and energy. The magnificent TRBLMKR 2021 for example (100% Neuburger, in some years also with a small amount of Malvasia in the cuvée)—the deliberately austere white label—stands for precisely that: no assertion, no explanation, but a remarkably individual wine with the desirable Coche-Dury snap on the palate. On the nose, a hint of Almdudler, then broom, quince, a little stone fruit, very faint but present: incense, more raspberry, some turmeric, and a little fragrance of raw leather boots. In the mouth, unbelievably drinkable. Critics often describe Nestarec’s style as ‘glou-glou with depth’—a term that actually undersells him. His wines are easy to drink—but that makes them in no way generic. They demand attention, not agreement.
Martin Vajčner works on a much smaller, more personal, almost quiet scale. His wines—for example the Veltliner Znojmo–Kraví Hora 2023 with its black label—show how clearly this region can think when it is allowed to. Kraví Hora, literally ‘Cow Hill’, is not a spectacular name, but a precise site: cool nights, wind, calcareous soils. Vajčner’s Veltliner carries this without pathos. Not an Austrian carbon copy, not an aromatic exaggeration, but something distinctive: taut, salty, with a spiciness that recalls herb stems and wet stone more than the typical Veltliner pepperiness. Natural wine without turbidity as a programme, without dramatic oxidation as a pose. Internationally, Vajčner is increasingly seen as one of those winemakers who show that ‘low intervention’ does not automatically mean ‘high volatility’.
What unites the two is less a style than an approach: grape varieties recede, while the place comes to the fore. Many producers in Moravia now work with PIWIs —fungus-resistant grape varieties bred to reduce plant protection drastically. Unlike in some other regions, all the varieties here are not aromatically amplified, but deliberately restrained. The result is wines of surprising calm, often cool, sometimes austere, almost always invigorating. That is precisely why they work so well gastronomically—and precisely why they are so physically un tiring.
Moravia is not an unequivocally romantic wine region—it resembles the neighbouring Austrian Weinviertel in that respect. Moravia is a workshop. And perhaps for that very reason it is currently one of the most interesting laboratories for established natural wine in Europe: less ideology, more flow. Less pose, more precision. Nestarec and Vajčner are not exceptions—they are both aftershocks and heralds.