2015 was quite a good vintage – especially compared to cold and rainy 2014!
In spring we had a lot of rain and quite cold May, which resulted in uneven pollination of the grapes. Cool spring was followed by extreme summer that was very dry and the heat sometimes exceeded 40°C. This all changed in second half of August, when extreme draught was replaced by extreme rain – within just 5 days we had 166 mm of rainfall! As the rain continued, our worries increased. Green, unripe berries were relatively OK and were growing slowly, but the more ripe varieties were softer and therefore easily bursted. Fortunately, Frankovka ripens late and therefore passed this trying period actually benefiting from the long-desired humidity. The harvest was on October 13, slightly earlier than usually, because more rainfall and also frosts were forecasted later. Grapes were plentiful and very healthy, sugar content was elegant 22°NM. The moment we brought the last boxes with grapes under the roof, the rain started…

Beautiful ripe bunches were crushed and destemmed, spontaneous fermentation took place in large stainless steel vat. We did regular remontage during the fermentation and maceration period, which secured gentle extraction. After 4 weeks on skins we pressed the wine and let it further age and mature first in stainless steel and then, in February 2016 we racked it to a combination of old and new barrique barrels, where the wine spent next 24 months. We did the first and only treatment with sulphur in February 2018, after blending the final wine from individual barrels together.

The resulting wine is fine, multilayered Frankovka with nice ripe fruity expression and great ageing potential.