Richard Stávek, Medovy Muskatek - 2022

Stávek, an incredible madman working in Moravia, isn't just a grapegrower. There's only 4.5ha of his 15ha estate devoted to vines. If you were to visit, he'd offer you goat cheese and sausages from his flock, and show you through all the various crops he tends to himself, and his running compost piles, going back up to 3 years. He also keeps bees. And this isn't just an funky, unfiltered, skin contact wine. It coferments with a very small amount of honey and propolis from his apiary. So I don't know what, because we've got a supremely orange, zero sulfur, unfiltered Czech Muscat that you could call mead. It's foot-stomped, fermented in wood, very dry, and one of the best dinner pairings I've had in a very long time. Big and aromatic, with some grip, and tasting of cider, pine, crushed flowers, apricots and preserved oranges.