Milan Nestarec – Podfuck (ONE PER ORDER)

Milan Nestarec states that “During its existence, Podfuck has undergone quite the transformation with me: from a hardcore three-months-on-skins Pinot Gris to an elegant red where this grape plays the bridge between the dominant Pinot Noir and our beloved Blaufrankisch.

Zadní Hora is our first vineyard. My grandparents used to own some land there before the communist putsch in 1948, and we were able to get it back during the 1990s restitution. It was planted in 1988, my birth year. (Hence my soft spot for this plot.) It used to be planted with Blaufrankisch, but in 1987, our village was hit with severe frost that killed most of the vines. I have no idea why the socialist cooperative decided to replant this plot with Pinot Gris instead of BF back then, but luckily they used historical local clones, with very dark skin color. So dark that when my winemaking neighbour blindly tasted the first-ever vintage of this wine, back in 2013, he congratulated me on making such a beautiful Blaufrankisch or Saint Laurent. I tried to explain to him that it actually was a PInot Gris, but he wouldn’t believe me, telling me it was just some podfuk (“cheating” or “trick” in Czech) of mine. So I just adjusted this heaven-sent name to Podfuck.

Each year, we’ve made the maceration shorter and shorter and started to add a tiny bit of Pinot Noir from the same spot, until one day the wine switched sides and became a real red. I love the noblesse that this tiny – erm, cheat – brings to the wine. I dare say that we have found its ideal expression, one that does justice to this early-ripening, forest-protected vineyard.”