Stanislav Mádl

The family of Stanislav (Standa) Mádl has been growing vines for several generations and officially established their winery and company in 1993. The winery has 57 hectares of vineyards mostly around the wine-making village of Velké Bílovice, producing around 250,000 bottles a year.

Although the winery used many of the modern winemaking techniques, controlled fermentation, etc., they have shifted in recent years towards a more natural way of fermentation. Currently, he uses a double fermentation method, where he kickstarts the fermentation of 300L of juice with the neutral strain of yeast. He then adds a bucket or two of the fermenting juice to big tanks (10,000L), which he keeps open for multiple days for terroir yeasts to drop in too.

When talking to Standa about wines he often adds some interesting story from the past when he was a student of viticulture at the local enology university. One of those stories is about his vineyard of Chardonnay. As a student of viticulture under the Communist regime, he and his classmates were allowed to travel to the imperialist West, namely France. Chardonnay at that time was forbidden bourgeois grape and was forbidden in the vineyards of Czechoslovakia. When young Standa spotted a French vineyard with Chardonnay, he jumped out from the bus, quickly cut off some young shoots, wrapped them into wet shirts, and smuggled them back to the home country. Mind you, an act punishable by a couple of years in prison. Of course, he did not stop there. He nurtured them and planted the vineyard. The first 2 years were alright, but when the young plants gave the first harvest, local people started to ask what kind of grapes it is. Standa was telling them that is a rare Pinot Blanc strain and luckily nobody was disputing him. Would that happen, a couple of years behind bars would be the result. 

Standa is also running a wonderful hotel, so if you would be planning to visit Moravia, we highly recommend basing there.