The Qvevri Garden & the Loess Hill

The story of Vína Herzánovi begins in the village of Kobylí, the largest wine village in the Czech Republic by vineyard area, where the Herzán family has made wine since time immemorial as a way of supplementing their livelihood. Bronislav Herzán and his wife Šárka passed their hobby on to their children Zuzana and Jakub. Over time, grape growing and wine production became a family passion, a hobby, and eventually the main work activity. The Herzáns planted their first quality vineyard on their own land in 1996, and since then they have gradually expanded, now farming 4.3 hectares of predominantly 15-year-old vines on a single south-oriented hill.

The turning point came in 2007, when the family switched from barrel wine production to high-quality bottled production. But the true transformation began in 2012, when Jakub and Zuzana took the helm. Jakub had just begun studying at the winemaking college in nearby Lednice — where he met Sandra, his future wife and fellow winemaker — and had quite a lot to take in at once. Led by his innate belief in environmental sustainability and influenced by the natural wine movement that many of his classmates were joining, he gradually landed on his feet and began to make wine in an increasingly natural way, both in the vineyard and in the cellar located under the family house.

Jakub's academic curiosity took him deep into the science of maceration. He earned a doctorate studying the influence of grape maceration on wine, with a particular focus on qvevri — the Georgian clay vessels that have been used for winemaking for 8,000 years. This research was not merely theoretical. In 2016, Jakub purchased four Georgian qvevri and buried them in the garden outside the family house, where they experience natural temperature fluctuations through the seasons. These vessels have served as fermentation and ageing vessels for a part of Herzánovi's wines ever since, producing the estate's signature Amfora cuvée and contributing components to the Black Label range.

The family converted the estate to fully organic farming in 2016 and has since implemented increasingly biodynamic methods. Jakub, Zuzana, and Sandra are among the founders of the Czecho-Slovak branch of Demeter, the international biodynamic certification organisation. "Each year we add something new to observe the influence on our land and wine," Sandra confirms. "We want to give the soil and plants all that we can, live in close contact with them, and limit the impact of our viticulture." The winery's motto — Čistě s přírodou, Purely with Nature — is not a marketing slogan but an operational principle that governs every decision in the vineyard and the cellar.

The winemaking philosophy at Vína Herzánovi is governed by a single principle: Čistě s přírodou — Purely with Nature. This light hand in the cellar would not be possible without respectful viticulture that leaves enough natural yeast and nutrients both inside and outside the berries. All wines ferment spontaneously with indigenous yeasts. There are no selected strains, no enzymes, no temperature control, no chaptalisation, and no acidification. The only exception in the entire range is the Black Label line, which receives a small addition of sulfur at bottling — around 38 ppm total — to preserve a more polished character compared to the funkier, zero-sulfur part of the portfolio.

The whites are made in a variety of vessels and styles, depending on the variety and the vintage's personality. The Amfora cuvée — Pálava and Traminer — is destemmed and placed in the Georgian qvevri buried in the garden, where it ferments and macerates on skins for nine months, experiencing natural temperature fluctuations through winter and spring. Alcoholic fermentation occurs before winter; malolactic conversion waits for nature to warm the soil again. After nine months, the wine is ladled by hand into the press, gently pressed, left to sediment, and bottled without fining, filtration, or sulfur. The result is an intensely aromatic, tannic, layered skin-contact white that tastes of tropical fruit, chai spice, and living clay.

The Black Label Grüner Veltliner is a masterclass in blended methodology: 15% spends nine months on skins in qvevri; 25% ferments in stainless steel with a few hours of initial maceration; and 60% ferments in older (fifth-use) French oak barriques. The components are blended and bottled with minimal sulfur, producing a wine that is juicy, peppery, and compellingly varietal — pineapple, ripe apples, Meyer lemon — with a polished character that demonstrates how natural winemaking can achieve refinement without sacrificing honesty. The Stará Škola field blend — mostly Müller Thurgau, Grüner Veltliner, and Neuburger from the 1980s — sees 5–10% skin-macerated before barrel fermentation and blending, creating a complex, juicy, herb-layered white.

The reds are handled with equal restraint. Modrý Portugal (Blauer Portugieser) and Dornfelder are destemmed and fermented as whole berries in open-topped tanks for two months, then aged for ten months in older French oak barrels of various sizes. The Pinot² — two-thirds Pinot Gris, one-third Pinot Noir — is co-harvested, destemmed, and fermented 100% in open tanks with two months of skin contact, then aged for twelve months in used French oak before blending and bottling without filtration, fining, or sulfur. The Kompot — Zweigelt, Dornfelder, and Portugieser — is made in two halves: half pressed immediately as whole bunches (blanc de noir style) and fermented in oak barrels; half destemmed and macerated on skins for three to four weeks in open tanks, then pressed to older barrels. After twelve months, the two halves are blended, creating a light, easy-drinking red that can be enjoyed cool or at room temperature.

To understand Vína Herzánovi, one must understand the doctor of qvevri — a winemaker whose academic research into maceration and Georgian clay vessels became the physical foundation of his cellar. Jakub Herzán did not merely read about qvevri; he buried four of them in his garden, where they experience the freeze and thaw of Moravian seasons, where the wine inside listens to the same temperature fluctuations that the vines feel above ground. This is not archaeological recreation; it is applied science. The qvevri are not decorative; they are functional, producing the Amfora cuvée and contributing to the Black Label blend. The doctor's approach is empirical, curious, and unafraid of being thought "weird" by conventional neighbors in a village dominated by a huge conventional winery.

The Demeter founder identity is equally central. Jakub, Zuzana, and Sandra are not merely following biodynamic fashion; they are building the institutional framework for it in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As co-founders of the Czecho-Slovak branch of Demeter, they are responsible for codifying, teaching, and certifying biodynamic practices in a region where such methods were virtually unknown a generation ago. This is structural work — creating the conditions for other growers to follow. Their own estate is the proof of concept: 4.3 hectares of loess, farmed without chemicals, producing wines of clarity and vitality that demonstrate biodynamics is not esoteric "voodoo" but practical agriculture.

The future of Vína Herzánovi is tied to the deepening of biodynamic practice, the continued maturation of the qvevri programme, and the gradual expansion of the zero-sulfur range. The Amfora will continue to be the estate's intellectual and sensory flagship — a wine that tastes of Georgia and Moravia simultaneously. The Stará Škola will continue to honour the 1980s field blends that are the family's heritage. The Pinot² will continue to defy categorisation. And the pet-nats will continue to fizz with the exuberance of young wine made without fear. The qvevri in the garden will continue to hold wine through winter and spring, and the loess hill will continue to provide its mineral generosity to every bottle.

In an age of increasing homogenisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and technological fixes — Vína Herzánovi stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values qvevri over stainless steel, biodynamic preparation over chemical fertiliser, indigenous yeast over selected strains, field blends over monoculture, the light hand over the heavy hand, and the specific voice of Kobylí's loess over the standardised replication of a global luxury style. Jakub, Zuzana, and Sandra Herzán are not merely making wine; they are restoring a relationship — between a family and its hill, between a garden and the Caucasus, between a doctoral thesis and the glass in your hand, between the largest wine village in the Czech Republic and the smallest, most honest cellar beneath it. The father, the children, the qvevri, the garden, the Demeter certificate, and the name that has meant Čistě s přírodou for a generation: all united in one bottle, one slope, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, place-specific, academically rigorous, family-rooted natural wine from the loess of Moravia.