The Travertine Hill & the Energy of Return

The story of Šiklóš Vinárstvo is the story of Viktor Šipoš — a man who built power plants in London, Vietnam, and Martinique before deciding that the only energy worth generating was the kind that grows on vines. An engineer by training, Viktor spent years in the international energy sector, living in far-flung corners of the world, absorbing wine cultures and agricultural traditions wherever his work took him. But the pull of home — of Levice, of the Šiklóš hill that loomed over his childhood, of the old vineyards that surrounded the small vineyard house where his family made wine for their own pleasure — proved stronger than the expatriate life.

The return was gradual and instinctive. Viktor and his partner traveled the world exploring wines and cultures, settling eventually back in Levice in a small house surrounded by old vineyards. Inspired by the place and its nature, they decided to make wine from local resources for their own pleasure. The first vintage was a modest 1,000 litres — "which has gone within 1 year," Viktor recalls with a laugh. "We were probably very thirsty." The success among friends was so immediate that they applied for a winemaker's licence and permits, deciding to bottle commercially and share their work with the wider world.

The name Šiklóš comes from the hill itself — Vápnik, locally known as Šiklóš, a 274-metre extinct travertine heap that rises from the plains southeast of Levice. The hill is a geological wonder: it once yielded travertine and a crystallized variety known as "Levice Golden Onyx," considered a European unique and one of the most expensive processed stones in the world. The porous tufa soil that gave birth to this stone now gives birth to Viktor's wines, imparting a minerality and freshness that is unmistakable. The connection between the winemaker and the hill is not merely geographical; it is geological, historical, and almost familial.

Viktor's approach is explicitly anti-industrial and anti-technological. Every step is made properly, by his own hands, without chemicals or modern technology — with the sole exception of the electric grape grinder, which he acknowledges with characteristic honesty. Fermentation is spontaneous, carried out by indigenous yeasts in stainless steel tanks. After the second or third racking, the wine goes to French oak barrels or directly to bottles, depending entirely on the winemaker's feeling. There are no analysis sheets, no recipes, no pressure to conform. The goal is simple: to make and offer the finest material in the bottles to wine-loving people around the planet, because honest and proper craft work will bring success and happiness.

The winemaking philosophy at Šiklóš Vinárstvo is governed by a single, uncompromising principle: honest and proper craft work. Viktor Šipoš does not follow recipes, analysis sheets, or technological protocols. He follows intuition, observation, and what he calls "the winemaker's feeling" — a sensibility developed through years of hands-on work and international wine exploration. The approach is explicitly primitive and non-manipulative: spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, no selected strains, no enzymes, no chaptalisation, no acidification, no temperature control, and no filtration or fining.

The process begins in the vineyard, where grapes are hand-harvested at optimal ripeness — not by numbers, but by taste and intuition. The fruit arrives at the cellar in small quantities, is gently destemmed and pressed using the only electric tool in the winery — the grape grinder — and is transferred to stainless steel tanks for spontaneous fermentation. The whites — Pinot Blanc, Welschriesling, Gewürztraminer — ferment on their own schedule, without human interference. Some may receive brief skin contact to extract additional texture and aromatic complexity; others are pressed directly, depending on the vintage and the variety's personality.

After the second or third racking, when the wine has begun to clarify naturally and the lees have settled, Viktor makes the crucial decision: to transfer the wine to French oak barrels for further ageing, or to bottle it directly. This decision is not dictated by market schedules or stylistic formulas; it is dictated by the wine itself and by the winemaker's feeling. The French oak is neutral, used for texture and micro-oxygenation rather than flavour. The lees are not stirred mechanically; they settle naturally, providing protection and a subtle creaminess. The reds — Frankovka Modrá, André, Alibernet — are treated with equal restraint: destemmed, fermented gently in open vats or tanks, and aged in neutral vessels before bottling.

Sulfur is never added. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered, carrying their natural sediment, native yeasts, and living microbial character. The result is a portfolio of wines that are vivid, sometimes hazy, always emotionally honest, and unmistakably marked by the travertine of Šiklóš. The cloudiness is not a fault; it is a signature — proof that the wine has not been stripped of its natural complexity by industrial processing. As Viktor puts it, the goal is to offer the finest material in the bottle, and the finest material is the wine exactly as nature made it.

To understand Šiklóš Vinárstvo, one must understand the energy sector escapee — a man who built power plants on three continents before deciding that the only power worth generating grows on vines. Viktor Šipoš is not a career winemaker who inherited a château; he is an engineer who chose wine over electricity, soil over concrete, and manual labour over management meetings. His international experience — London, Vietnam, Martinique — gave him a global perspective on wine culture, but it also taught him what he did not want: industrial scale, technological dependence, and the abstraction of natural resources into commodities. The escapee identity is central to Šiklóš's authenticity: this is not a project born of privilege but of deliberate, adult choice.

The travertine purist identity is equally defining. Viktor does not merely farm organically; he farms on a specific, unusual, historically significant soil — porous tufa that once yielded the Golden Onyx of Levice. The purist does not chase trends; he chases truth. He believes that the travertine imparts a minerality and freshness that cannot be replicated, and he refuses to obscure that truth with technology, sulfur, or filtration. The purist accepts cloudiness as a virtue, sediment as a signature, and natural variation as the price of honesty. Every bottle of Šiklóš wine is, in this sense, a liquid argument for the primacy of terroir over technique.

The future of Šiklóš Vinárstvo is tied to the continued health of the one hectare, the gradual deepening of Viktor's intuition, and the slow expansion of his reach to wine-loving people around the planet. The Pinot Blanc will continue to offer a window into the chalky purity of travertine. The Welschriesling will continue to challenge preconceptions about Slovak white wine. The Frankovka Modrá will continue to prove that Blaufränkisch can achieve peppery elegance on tufa. And the pét-nat will continue to fizz — a wine of joy, zero sulfur, and uncomplicated pleasure. The Šiklóš hill will continue to provide its porous limestone, and the old vines will continue to dig deeper into the memory of the Golden Onyx.

In an age of increasing homogenisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and technological fixes — Šiklóš Vinárstvo stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a different modernity: one that values one hectare over one hundred, organic health over chemical yield, the winemaker's feeling over laboratory analysis, travertine minerality over standardised flavour, zero sulfur over preservative crutches, and the specific voice of the Šiklóš hill over the anonymous replication of a global luxury style. Viktor Šipoš is not merely making wine; he is restoring a relationship — between an engineer and the soil, between a traveler and his home, between a hill's geological memory and the glass in your hand. The power plant, the return, the vineyard house, the old vines, the electric grinder, the travertine, the Golden Onyx, and the name that has meant honest Slovak natural wine for a generation: all united in one bottle, one slope, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, place-specific, emotionally honest, zero-sulfur wine from the tufa of Levice.