Deep ruby with a brick edge — this wine has been working on itself for two years. Dried cherry, plum jam, blackcurrant, a trace of forest floor. Rounded. Earthy. Built to last. THE STORY Veselý is a place, not just a name — a south-facing hillside in Moravia that Richard Stávek has been farming since the mid-1990s, when almost nobody in the Czech Republic was thinking about natural wine. The vines here are 50 to 55 years old, planted in sandy, limestone-rich soil in a mix that was never rationalised into a single variety — Blaufrankisch, St. Laurent, Blauer Portugieser, André, Zweigelt, all growing together the way old Moravian vineyards always did. Batch 7B is the one that waited. After 14 days of whole-cluster fermentation in open larch barrels — grapes stamped by foot, cap pushed down by hand — the wine spent 22 months in old oak before bottling. No fining, no filtration, just time. The result is something that's already good but has 2024–2030 written on it. This is patience in a bottle. WINEMAKING DETAILS Grapes hand-harvested from 0.6 ha of organically farmed, southwest-facing vines at the Veselý site. Average vine age 50–55 years, grown on sandy, high-limestone soils. All varieties co-fermented as a field blend in open 600-litre larch barrels with whole clusters; cap submerged by manual punch-down. Spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeast. Maceration approximately 14 days. After pressing, lightly settled by gravity and transferred to two 600-litre, 7- and 8-year-old oak barrels (not barrique) for 22 months of élevage with occasional bâtonnage. Blended into one vessel, rested one further month, then bottled unfined and unfiltered under natural cork.
