A good year Czech wines

Dreams do come true and Dušan lives his in Haarlem!

When I met Dušan the first thing I saw was his passion for Czech natural wines. And now you can all see that, because he just founded a company that brings this naturally, delicious fermented juice to us, here in the Netherlands, straight to our house or business. Yes, we talked about natural wines before, but the talk about nature, wine and food, never ends. Especially when you discover new wines from unique regions you never thought would become your favourites. So if you cannot go to Czech wines, Czech wines come to you!

But who is Dušan?

A good year Czech wines

Dušan Grenar is another fellow expat who moved to the Netherlands four years ago. He is a nature and wine lover and lucky enough to be born and raised in Hodonín, in South Moravia, the most important wine region in the Czech Republic. He tasted the first sips of wine with his grandfather as a little boy. This naturally created a special bond between him, the vineyards and the wine. He was always an advocate for returning to the roots and work in harmony with nature. That is why he founded A Good Year, a wine import and distribution company based in Haarlem, with the will to offer the widest selection of Moravian natural wines in the Netherlands!

What is unique about A Good Year?

A good year Czech winesA Good Year is a movie about wine and love, starring Russel Crowe, (see here our favourite wine movies) and is also the company that Dušan created. But what does make this wine company different from the others? The fact that all the wines are natural and they come from carefully selected wine producers from the South Moravian region in the Czech Republic.  Dušan is in daily contact with the winemakers and he personally source the most delicious wines, after he tastes them of course – tough job, right? Currently, there are 46 natural wines in his portfolio and new ones are coming every 2 weeks. He is also creating extraordinary experiences for his clients – from guided wine tastings to personalised wines for companies & individual clients.

His dream was to share his passion with natural Moravian wines and he did it. Now it’s your turn to enjoy them!

Naturally delicious wine. Let’s remember what that means.

As we talked about in previous articles, natural wine, until some years ago, signified a bourgeois taste in certain social circles and on certain menus across the world – but, today, it has become a more everyday trend and demand.

Natural wine is farmed organically and sometimes biodynamically and made without adding or removing anything. That is why the natural wine-making is also good for the environment. Also in the cellar, no additives or processing aids are used, sometimes not even yeast, and ‘intervention’ in the naturally occurring fermentation process is kept to a minimum. Though while natural wine is recently trendy, it is not new: people have been making fermented grape juice without additives for thousands of years.

And that is what A Good Year brings to you, red, rose, white, orange, bubbles, from small and medium-sized wineries, mostly from Czech (e.g. Dobra Vinice, Petr Marada, Vína Herzánovi), but soon also from Slovakia, Austria and Hungary, who farm organically, cultivating vines without pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers and do not add any industrial yeasts and hardly or not any sulfates. This means that you will be pleasantly surprised from the taste of wines that have been made in harmony with nature.

And let’s not forget my favourite wine and the absolute 2020 & 2021 trend, the orange wine. It is not made from oranges of course, but from white wine grapes where the grape skins are not removed, as in typical white wine production, and stay in contact with the juice for days or even months. Orange wines are robust and bold, with honeyed aromas of jack-fruit, hazelnut, brasil nut, bruised apple, wood, linseed oil, juniper, sourdough and dried orange rind. On the palate, they’re big, dry and even tannic like a red wine with a soft sourness.

And what other natural wines does A Good Year bring to us? More than 10 different sparkling Pét Nats of course! Pét-Nat is produced in the méthode ancestral, otherwise known as “rurale,” “artisanale,” or “gaillacoise.” Long story short, the wine is bottled prior to fully completing its first fermentation, allowing carbon dioxide to be produced by the natural sugars found in the grapes. Pét-Nats have a light and fizzy mouthfeel and are generally low in alcohol.

Can I taste these wines? Yes, you can!

A good year Czech winesDušan is offering two ways of private corona-proof tasting of his wines:

–  At your place: 6 wines, 1,5-2 hours – €24

– At your door: 4 wines, 30-45 min – €14

And if you want to taste a Pét-Nat as well, you can with a special price of €16 (and keep the whole bottle of course). After the tasting you can buy any wine you tasted and loved, with 10% discount.

You can book a wine tasting or order wine via:

  • email: agoodyearhaarlem@gmail.com
  • WhatsApp: 0626744468

Or send a DM on:

*The website is in progress www.agoodyear.wine and the webshop will be available in April.

A virtual trip to South Moravia

A good year Czech wines

A good year Czech wines

A vineyard in South Moravia (wikipedia)

South Moravia is Dušan’s birthplace, but also the most important wine region in the Czech Republic. Wine growing in this region has been reliably tracked back to the Roman Empire period – the 2nd century AD. Ideally situated north of the Alps and at the western edge of the Carpathian Mountains, the region benefits from a cooler climate, which excels at White wine production. Spreading over more than 16,5 thousand hectares, the region includes 96% of the country’s vineyards. Quality can be outstanding. Podyji National Park is also very important part of the wine growing and it’s close to Znojmo city, near the Austrian border. A perfect reason for you to get acquainted with these unique wines from Moravia.

A good year Czech winesA Good Year
Import & Sale of Wine

Nicolaas van der Laanstraat 29RD
2013 BL Haarlem, The Netherlands

T: +31 (0)6 2674 4468
E: agoodyearhaarlem@gmail.com
W: www.agoodyear.wine
IG: @agoodyear.wine

KVK / ID No: 76953238
BTW / VAT: NL003147251B75