Pivnica Čajkov – Princess 2025
Čajkov, Slovakia | White
There's a specific kind of difficulty in making a genuinely good everyday wine. Too little attention in the cellar and it's forgettable; too much and you've crushed the very lightness that made it worth drinking in the first place. Marek Uhnák at Pivnica Čajkov has been walking this line for a while, and Princess is where he does it most deliberately.
The grape is Pesecká Leánka — Fetească regală in Romanian — a variety that feels tailor-made for this part of Slovakia's Sitno volcanic country. It's expressive without being demanding, fruity without being obvious. For this wine, the fruit comes from the southern section of the Stará Hora plot, where a thicker layer of fertile topsoil over red rhyolite and tuff bedrock at 200 metres pushes it toward something lighter and more delicate. 2025 was a cooler vintage than the scorching 2024, with gradual ripening that required three separate passes through the vineyard between late August and early September to pick everything at the right moment.
Gently destemmed and crushed, with the free-run and light-press juices going straight into stainless steel to ferment on fine lees — no racking, no batonnage, no manipulation of any kind, preserving the natural CO2 that gives Princess its characteristic lift. Bottled in February 2026. Unfined, unfiltered, 15 ppm sulphur at bottling.
White peach, pear, and quince on the nose and palate, with juicy acidity, a mineral finish, and that gentle prickle of natural fizz running underneath everything. Light-headed in the best possible sense.
Drink it with: zucchini rolls with fresh brynza, grilled fish, simple salads, or a slow weekend morning that has nowhere to be.
Alcohol: 11% abv.