Wednesday Wine Tip - Milan Nestarec

MILAN NESTAREC

"Milan Nestarec is not a winery, it's ideas that just happen to be represented through wine" - Milan Nestarec

Country: Czechia

Region: Velké Bílovice, Southern Moravia

This week's Wednesday Wine Tip is not a wine, but a winemaker. It's non other than the young rebel from Czechia, Milan Nestarec. If you have not heard about him, or tasted his wines before, you came to the right place.

He has been famous in the natural wine scene for many years now, and he was a producer I noticed very quickly once I started swimming in the world of wine. Milan grew up in a winemaking family, and he has continued this tradition with his parents and wife, being an important part of their winemaking. They have 13 different plots they harvest grapes from, and instead of trying to make the grapes fit into a format every vintage, the grapes themselves tell Milan and his team what they should become.

This might sound a bit new-age hippie like, but it's true. I have always loved Milan's approach to winemaking which is based on making the best wines the way the grapes can best express themselves. This is the opposite approach in many ways to the classic and traditional winemaking process based on rules, styles for different regions, and vintage consistency over all.

Instead Milan experiments, evolves, adjusts and learn with us along the way. In the beginning I could get frustrated when I tried one of his wines, loved it, and when the next vintage came out it tasted completely different. A great example is his Podfuck that started out as mostly macerated pinot gris with some pinot noir, and over time it turned into a pinot noir with a touch of macerated pinot gris. He has also deviated away from the heavy skin contacted whites (to my great despair), and tried to extract just what he needs from the skins without overpowering the finesse and delicacy of his grapes. You can still taste the skins, but it's very well incorporated and not your typical in-your-face orange wines.

I tasted some of his new vintages today and thought it would be a good time to give a short introduction to his skin contact wines.

DOPAMIN

This is one of his new releases that I was very excited to try. It's a solera mix - meaning a blend of several vintages where you drain off a certain amount each year so the final product is a blend of several vintages with the average age gradually increasing as the process continues over many years. This was a banger from the nose to the tongue. Very rich, lots of nuttiness and saltiness from the process, but never overwhelming. A clean and fresh solera (lightly) orange wine that everyone should try.

OKR

A classic one liter bottle house wine from Milan that has been through many changes since it's release some years ago. My personal feelings towards this wine has changed with the wines development, but I'm happy to say that the new batch from 2022 is fantastic. It's less herbal, more fruit, more complex, but still your good old chuggable house orange.

UMAMI

This wine is a typical example of a wine I always regret not buying more often every time I try it. Not only is it fanastic with asian cusisin (and umami rich food, of course), but it's also an amazing example of how balanced you can make a Gewürztraminer without having 16% alcohol or residual sugar. It's big and bold, but if you want something that gently slaps you in the face and kiss you softly afterwards, this is your wine.

TRBLMKR

This little bad boy has been a go-to for me for many years because it's always been a great mix of orange wine aromatics, but never too crazy for the "normies". In the 2021 vintage Milan has added 5% of Malvasia, which gives it a little bit of an added fruitiness that I love. Long taste, great fruit, also some nuttiness here, but in general a fresh wine for many an occasion.

G&T

Formerly known as GinTonic, which was the winery's favorite wine to drink from the barrel before bottling. In the 2019 vintage it's now more Riesling and less Sauvignon Blanc, which makes it less herbal (and less gin), but richer and more minerals in the taste. This one has only 12 hours of skin contact, making it a very gentle introduction to his orange wines. Love the aromatics on this one right now.

WTB

The name is a nod to it's older Grüner sibling (What The Flor) to show that in this case it's not about what happens in the cellar (flor in the case of WTF), but what happens in the vineyard (Bilovice for WTB, which is the vineyard it's from). It's the oldest vines they have (planted in 1974) and this wine truly represents the land and the grape so well. A rich wine that deserves time in the glass and time to appreciate.

Thank you for the wines Milan!