Milan Nestarec speaks plainly. Not using herbicides? Normal. No fining, no filtration, no sulfur? Normal. What reads as a manifesto is, for him, simply a description of how wine has always been made when no one got clever about it. That directness extends to the cellar, where technical precision and hands-off philosophy coexist in a way that has produced some of the most sought-after bottles in contemporary European natural wine.
Backstory
Nestarec is based in Velke Bilovice, a wine village in the Slovacke Hanacko subregion of South Moravia, about 15 kilometers from the Austrian border. His father established the operation in 2001, and Milan took it in a new direction after visiting Slovenia and encountering natural wine around 2008. He has farmed organically from the outset of his own involvement, obtaining formal organic certification in 2022. He is a member of the Autentiste group, an association of Moravian growers committed to natural methods. He and his wife Mirka Nestarcova run the estate together.
The Region
South Moravia is the Czech Republic's principal wine region, pressed against the Austrian and Slovak borders in the country's southeast. The landscape is gentle and agricultural, with vines sharing hillsides with sunflowers and orchards. The continental climate brings hot summers and cold winters, and the rich diversity of Moravian soils, including loess, clay, chernozem, and sand, supports an unusually wide range of varieties. Milan's vineyards sit at around 220 meters above sea level.
Vineyards and Farming
The estate covers 24 hectares across three main vineyard sites: Slovenske in Moravsky Zizkov, Zadni hora in Velke Bilovice, and Vinohrádky. Soils are a mosaic of loess, clay, chernozem, and sand. White varieties include Grüner Veltliner, Neuburger, Pinot Blanc, Müller-Thurgau, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc; reds include Blaufrankisch, Pinot Noir, St. Laurent, and Cabernet Franc. Regenerative agriculture principles guide vineyard management, with no synthetic chemicals and no systemic fungicides.
Winemaking
The cellar is low-intervention by design. Fermentations are always spontaneous, using only indigenous yeasts. Wines rest in a range of vessels, from 225-liter barrels to 3,000-liter neutral oak casks, stainless steel, and concrete. No fining, no filtration. Sulfur additions are minimal, typically 3 to 5 parts per million at bottling, if added at all. Annual production reaches approximately 75,000 bottles across an extensive range of cuvees.
The Wines
Nestarec's range is wide and deliberately approachable: Postmoderna (a playful red), Hedonista (orange), Dopamin (white), Bum Bum Cha (a red-white blend), Melancholia (Neuburger), and Transcendent (a skin-fermented blend) represent a cellar that takes craft seriously while refusing to take itself too seriously. The wines drink young but reward patience, and the best cuvees carry the mineral depth of South Moravian terroir that few producers in the region have managed to capture.
