Milan Nestarec - OKR - 1 liter - 2022 - 12,5% - regio Moravia

Ochre Ochre, Burning Bright / In the Forests of the Night

In short, skin contact wines still have their place in my heart and cellar, and creating an amber brother to our dear Běl & Nach liters was kind of a no-brainer. All these salt-of-the-earth fellas share not only the plump one-liter bottles that we've really fallen in love with, and the linocut label by my dear wife Mirka, but also the same “everyday easy drinking” vibe. This means no hardcore tannins or long macerations, but rather a fine, normal skin-contact wine with great energy, distinguished aromatics, and only a hint of the “orangey” character. (Full disclosure: I'm not a huge fan of the term orange wine or its ubiquity.) Okr is vivid, fun, and just enough talkative for it to be the best of companions.

We chose to name it Okr (ochre in Czech) not only because it follows the concise, colour-themed concept of its siblings Běl and Nach, but also because ochre is a natural pigment with a long history of use by humans – pieces of the material engraved with abstract designs have been found in South Africa and dated to around 75,000 years ago. And ochre literally is earth, precisely a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand, with colours ranging from yellow to orange or amber. Voilá the perfect symbol for where the wine comes from, and which hues & glints you can expect in your glass...

Although much less infatuated with „amber“ wines than I once was,
I still enjoy a well-made macerated white from time to time. Adding
a skin-contact sibling to our liter-bottle range was a no-brainer, the
only thing I was meticulous about was keeping it just as drinkable
and easy-going as Běl, Nach and Růž. No hardcore tannins or long
macerations, but rather a fine skin contact wine with great energy,
distinguished aromatics, and only a hint of the “orangey” character. There’s an important part of Gruner Veltliner, a grape I focus on
more and more as I find it both super interesting and greatly adapted to Bilovice conditions.

2022 was a very dry and hot year, with only 421 mm of rainfall (= about 100 mm less than average) and 32+days with temperatures exceeding 30 °C between June and August. While the younger vineyards visibly suffered, the older vineyards coped very well, and we did our best to adapt the vineyard management, in order to
keep as much shade and water as possible. The temperatures dropped radically at the end of August and the ripening became very slow, thanks also to the nearly–constant September rain. Fortunately, warmer weather returned in October and saved the vintage’s reputation, especially for late varieties such as my beloved
Gruner Veltliner and Blaufrankisch. Fermentations in general were slower than usual (not just in our region but more or less in the whole of Central Europe, afaik), but in the end, the wines are tasty, aromatic and accessible, with lower acidity and lower ABV, ready to be drunk quickly.

Grape varieties Gruner Veltliner, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Pálava
Region Moravia
Subregion Velkopavlovická
Village Velké Bílovice & Moravský Žižkov
Vineyard Blend of different plots
Aspect South-west and south
Average altitude 210–225 m ASL
Slope 7–14%
Soil Loess and sand
Farming Organic (certified by ABCERT)
Age of vines 4–21 years old
Vineyard size 2 ha
Training system Guyot
Density of plantation 2.2 x 1.0 m and 2.0 x 0.9 m
Yield 65 hl/ha
Harvest By hand, October 7–11, 2022
Vinification Sorted by hand, destemmed, uncrushed,
4–5 days of skin maceration with regular gentle remontages
Pressing Gentle push by the pneumatic press and free-run juice
Fermentation Spontaneous, in open-top vats
Ageing Stainless steel + Wood
Fining No
Filtration No
Sulfur addition 7 ppm before bottling
Bottling April 2023
Lot number Okr22
Alcohol by volume 12.5 %
Acids 5.7 g/l
Residual sugar 1.5 g/l
Bottle 1.0 l Vetropack Bordeaux 447
Closure Crown cap
Serving temperature 12 –14 °C