Sklep58
Jakub and Filip, the winemakers of Sklep58, met in the School of Viticulture of Mendel University in Brno.
Neither were from a winemaking family, like the majority of their classmates, so when they graduated, the first step was to look for a place where they could make their wines. Fast forward to a phone call from a friend, to visit a 120 year old vacant cellar in Pavlov - cellar in Czech is "Sklep", the house number was 58 and Sklep58 was born.
After becoming well-versed in the additives used in conventional winemaking at university, they decided low-intervention wines were the way forward for them.
So now there's a cellar, and a philosophy - but what about the grapes? Here's where University was a blessing - Jakub and Filip counted grape-breeder and pioneer of viticulture Vlastimil Perina (and others), as their lecturer. They contacted him and started to buy magnificent produce of his private vineyards which are all grown in a BIO and low-intervention regime.
In their cellars you can find the marvels of old times like manual grape crushers and basket presses. The wines are 100% hand-made - they do not use any mechanisation and move the juice and wine by gravity only. For fermenting and ageing the wine, they use old oak barrels and amphorae. There is no filtering or fining of the wines and minimal sulphites are added - if any. All wines are vegan.