It's no big secret that the cycle of events in winemaking is set in motion by nature and the winemaker only listens to it with experience. The awakening of the new vintage begins in January with the pruning, which must be completed by the end of March. In April the vines tear, in May the eyes sprout, in June the heads bloom. Tiny grape berries appear at the beginning of the summer holidays and will ripen and mature until September, when the harvest begins at Sonberk.
While the vast majority of days in 2022 were hot and dry, with September came cooler temperatures and precipitation. Fortunately, this did not affect the sugar content of the grapes - the arrival of Indian summer in October finally allowed the late varieties Riesling and Merlot to ripen. We also managed to harvest Pálava for straw wine - it is now drying on wooden grates and will be pressed sometime in mid-winter.
Exactly one hundred years have passed on 12 January 2022 since the birth of the breeder of the Pálava variety - Ing. Josef Veverka. In his honour, we have organised a tasting under the name 100 Pálavas. Over 100 samples and even more participants gathered for the tasting, where we presented our dry Pálava 2021, Stříbrný Sonberk, with great success.
The dry Pálava VOC from the Velký Sonberk range is also popular - you can find it in Forbes magazine's holiday recommendation for the 12 best wines from Bohemia and Moravia (paywall). The dry Pálava VOC is the only wine representing the Czech Republic at the La Cité du Vin exhibition in Bordeaux and was also a success at the National Geographic Traveller Food Festival in London over the holidays.
Please meet Riesling VOC 2020. In May it won gold at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, in June silver at the Decanter World Wine Awards (90 pts.), in the holidays gold at Oenoforum and more. Residual sugar 1.5 g/l, crisp varietal acidity and a beautiful ageing to petrol notes. A typical Sonberk Riesling that is worth drinking not only today.
And Pálava again - in straw form, from the first creator of straw wine in the Czech Republic - Sonberk's winemaker Olda Drápal Jr.: 98 points Prague Wine Trophy, 98 points and the award for the best naturally sweet wine in the Guide to the best wines of the Czech Republic, and 89 points Decanter World Wine Awards. A delicious and refined wine, whose creation was accompanied by dramatic circumstances...
At the beginning of the year we attended Vinexpo in New York, followed by the Czech Embassy Wine Day in London and in the autumn we went to the Enoexpo wine fair in Krakow.
However, the world was not lazy and travelled to us, too - in August, one of the most famous wine influencers - Italian Andrea Zigrossi alias Trotterwine - chose us for his visit as part of his trip around the world.
In 2022, in cooperation with the Music in the Vineyards project, we played six concerts and one theatre performance with actors from the Brno Municipal Theatre. And if you enjoy our summer open air concerts, we already have a programme for 2023.
The year 2022 was unexpectedly fast-paced and in many, many ways extremely challenging. But it has also been beautiful and moving. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank all of you who have been a part of it.
May good cheer and great wines accompany you in 2023, cheers from all of us!
Would you like to see and experience all this? We look forward to seeing you at Sonberk.
Visit usRegister and get a 10% discount on the purchase of wines. In addition to an attractive system of club discounts for you, we also have a non-public wine offer.
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WINTER/ Nov - Feb
Mon - Sun 10:00 - 17:00
SUMMER/ Mar - Oct
Mon - Sun 10:00 - 18:00
Fri + Sat 10:00 - 20:00 (Jun - Sep)
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Sonberk a.s.
Tel: +420 777 630 434
or: +420 730 594 570
E-mail: sonberk@sonberk.cz
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