The woes of a winemaker on Kuksa. Two and a half thousand vine bushes turned black

Two and a half thousand vine bushes planted at a height of about 250 meters above sea level contrast sharply with the bright green grass, with which they should blend in color. “Shrubs will struggle a lot to re-grow green shoots that have been scorched by the frost. Still, there will be no harvest,” stated Stanislav Rudolfský, the founder of the Kuk vineyard.

But the owner of the vineyard does not lose his desire to grow Burgundy wine on the southern slope opposite the Kuk Hospital. He does not see an obstacle in retirement or in the wound that the weather has inflicted on the vineyard this year.

“A disaster like this makes a man realize that he is not the master of the world. Something similar has happened to the vineyard maybe five times in its twenty-year history. But something always remained. This year the damage is 100%, which has never happened here before. It’s all nature,” says the winemaker.

The fruit will be only a fifth, the rest was burnt by the frost, Výborný announced

Economy

The vineyard, which Rudolfský founded in Kuks, continues for centuries the winemaking tradition of the former owner of the local estate, František Antonín Špork (1662-1738).

It is not a large company with a production of thousands of hectoliters. Rudolfský manages the half-hectare vineyard with his wife and occasional part-timers. From the usual one thousand liters of wine juice, they produce sparkling wine and still wines for connoisseurs. “My wife and I will drink half of the annual production of fifteen hundred bottles and sell the rest,” Rudolfský says with humor.

This year, however, there won’t be a single drop. “We have to overcome the feeling of doom, just like in the past, when the damage was not nearly as bad as this year,” he pointed out.

A shortfall in production will also mean a shortfall in sales, but the costs of maintaining the vineyard remain. Rudolfský hopes for help from the state.

“Together with the other Czech winemakers who, unlike the Moravian ones, lost their entire harvest, we will negotiate with the Minister of Agriculture Mark Výborny (KDU-ČSL) about the possibilities of compensation,” he says.

The natural conditions give the grapes from Kuksu, matured on marl rock with a layer of loess, the original taste of the rugged Podkrkonoší.

“The vine here has a very hard life, which has a positive effect on the quality and sugar content of the grapes. We grow wine using the old cultivation method. The trunks are not supported by wires, but by oak rods, to which we fix the plants with bast. The grapes are lower above the ground, they have more heat and a higher sugar content,” explains Rudolfský.

“Then there’s the wonderful alchemical process of turning sugar into alcohol,” he adds. Connoisseurs are said to make prized sparkling wine in Kuks from grapes of the same quality as in French Champagni.

The Kukský vineyard is a landscape-forming element in the conservation area as well as a diversion on the local wine trail. The vine is also watched over by the statue of the Goddess of Wine, which was created by Jaroměr sculptor Petr Novák in the style of the school of Matyáš Bernard Braun, and which is as tall as Braun’s statues of virtues and vices on Kuksa.

“I started growing wine here because the landscape is beautiful here,” adds Rudolfský.

It is said that the winegrowers will not ask the state for compensation for damage caused by frost. It’s nature, they explain

Homemade