Head winemaker of Thaya, Jakub Smrcka, tasting one of his wines at the winery.

Thaya - Czech Republic

In this land of former kings, foreign invaders and communist rule, at least 1 thing survived the ages... you guessed it - wine! Thaya estate winery is in South Moravia, Czech Republic, just north of the Austrian border in the town of Znojmo.

Thaya organically farms and most wines are made with native yeast fermentation, so considered natural wines, with some steel fermented and some oak aged. They focus on monovarietal wines that are traditional to the Czech Republic. If you brush up on the history of this country here, you’ll discover that this landlocked country’s wine history is influenced by its neighbors, Germany and France and former ruler, Austria. Thus the grapes they cultivate are from these countries, such as riesling from Germany, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc from France, blaufrankish and zweigelt from Austria. Plus Thaya cultivates native Czech grape varieties, such as Moravian Muscat, and grapes where the origin is not 100% certain, like saint laurent, a descendant of pinot noir and muller thurgau created by a Swiss German.

Thaya follows organic principles and work as much as possible with native yeast fermentation as well, and diligently look after the wine, letting nature take its course and their well-farmed grapes become delicious wine.

Jakub Smrcka is the head winemaker at the helm of Thaya, where he intensely manages every stage of the winemaking process, to make better wine year after year.