Martin Grombíř, Podkovné: Folklore, Frašták & Flysch

So take this interview as an introduction, if you haven’t got the pleasure already: not just to the man himself, but to his unique region of Strážnice, driven by still very much alive folklore tradition; to the unique marine terroirs that we geek out over; or to the old vines we both love.

Martin [instagram] is a clear winner at this game – none of his 3.5 ha is younger than 29 years, and his oldest vines hit 130 years, which makes us Bílovice guys genuinely envious.

Words by Milan Nestarec, photos courtesy of Podkovné

I remember exactly when we first met, it was at Natural Wine Fest in Brno, though I can't recall the exact year. You brought me a bottle of wine made of Frašták variety, saying that since I love wines from old vineyards, I should taste this one from century-old vines. That disarmed me completely. It was a beautiful gesture, and I remember it to this day. It was direct and yet effortless. Are you a direct person? Who is Martin Grombíř, really?

Yes, it was Natural Wine Fest, I remember it vividly as well. At the time, I was wondering if it wasn't too forward, and I'll admit I felt a bit awkward handing over the bottle. But clearly it landed well [laughs]. I think it's generally difficult for someone to describe themselves, but yes, I am a direct person. Maybe it rubs some people the wrong way sometimes, but I think it's better that way. Otherwise, I'd say I'm just an ordinary village boy who, despite appearances, doesn't really seek out crowds or city noise. I prefer to spend my time in the quiet of my home in Strážnice, where my family historically comes from.

I know you have roots in the Moravian folklore. How did this environment shape you, or still shape you today? What does tradition mean to you? Your roots? The Strážnice town?

Folklore is omnipresent for us, I experience it every day. It's simply our natural way of life. I come from a folklore family, and like most kids here, I spent part of my life in one of the local folklore groups.

My father pushed me quite a bit toward playing violin, which is deeply rooted in our family. But as a teenager, only thing I really cared about was my bicycle and wandering around Strážnice with my friends.

Strážnice is said to be the mecca of folklore, and I can't but agree. Traditions here are deeply rooted; they hold a strong place and are cherished. It pulses through the people here. You can see it in everyday moments, like locals singing while they work, just for the joy of it. Historically, folklore was connected to everything: work in the vineyard, working the meadows with a scythe, plowing with an ox. But most importantly, it is bound to love, the birth of new life, and death. That is what tradition means to me.

I have to say that "Slovácko boys", aka you and Petr Michálek, represent a new wave of wine authenticity for me. I can't quite explain it, but I'll once again assign it to folklore, which I’ve always found to be the purest and most genuine in the Slovácko and Horňácko areas. And I feel exactly that in your wines too, that pure, rural, hard character. How would you describe wines from Slovácko yourself? What makes them exceptional?

"Slovácko boys," haha, I like that. You've described it beautifully. Slovácko is a broad concept for me, encompassing many differences. Let's focus on the White Carpathians area, which has a strong signature thanks to its terroir, starting from the village of Sudoměřice all the way to Vlčnov, the easternmost wine village in the Czech Republic.

For me, the local wines are completely different from what I'm used to in other parts of Moravia. The interplay of microclimate and soil has a huge impact. The elevation of most vineyard sites is around 300 to 360 meters above sea level, with a northwest-facing orientation, and water-retaining clay with high limestone content in the soil contributes to the harder expression of the wine, which holds acidity beautifully.

The acidity content in must typically sits around 9 to 10 grams/liter. All of this has been working in our favor, especially in recent years when most winemakers are struggling with insufficient acidity and poor pH in their grapes.

And although Gruner Veltliner isn't cultivated much here, your WTB would fit right in with its expression [laughs].

What was your path to wine? Did you know right away that you wanted to make unmanipulated wine, or was the journey more winding?

My path to wine was, I'd say, a traditional one. In childhood, working in the vineyard was a chore, at times even hated. Then came curiosity, after making my first own demijohn of wine.

Historically, our approach to processing grapes and making wine has always followed a rustic line. Of course, like most of his peers, my father also went through a period of testing added yeasts and nutrients, but the wines lost their typicity and didn't please us. So it didn't last long, we went back to doing it the old way.

It's also essential to mention that our peripheral microregion didn't go through agrodevastation, and our local grandfathers and fathers “kept calm and carried on” making their wines naturally as their ancestors had, which has largely persisted to this day. I'm very grateful for that.

The first time I started making my own wines for real came when my father lost his sense of smell and working in the cellar became problematic for him. After I processed my first harvest, there was no turning back. Despite the mistakes I make every year – telling myself, "Good, nevermind, next time there will be no surprises" and then something else comes up — I absolutely love this calling. I can't imagine doing anything else in life.

Podkovné is a vineyard site name – I suppose your best site, since you named your entire winery after it. Am I understanding correctly that the place where the grapes come from is more important to you than the name of the winemaker? Why Podkovné and not Martin Grombíř?

You understand correctly. The Podkovné vineyard is very close to my heart. It's a family jewel passed down through my mother's side, the Vajčnér family, for generations. [Editor's note: historically, there's some common ancestry with Martin Vajčner, another young Moravian wine prodigy – check our interview here – but they're no longer really kin.]

Podkovné is located roughly halfway up the Žerotín hillside. The upper part is composed of calcareous clays and marls, while the lower part consists of flysch, i.e. redeposited marine sediments from the Upper Cretaceous and Middle Eocene.

They even discovered a shark tooth fragment on the slope, isn’t that fascinating? There’s a whole range of fossil fragments of similar age on this hill, actually, I recently found part of a larger ammonite. Otherwise, it's mainly dark gray limestones with flint nodules, with bivalve impressions and echinites, as well as silicates, flint, and strong calcareous sandstones. Fossilized wood is also occasionally found.

What exactly is flysch?

In layman's terms, I'd describe it as a complex of sediments like calcareous claystone, marl, and sandstone. But historically, it's far more interesting. The White Carpathians formed during the Mesozoic era, particularly in the Cretaceous period, and Tertiary period. Their rocky foundation is made up of the flysch I mentioned – marine sediments from the prehistoric Tethys Ocean.

Pressure and tectonic plate movement folded and lifted these layers above the surface of the warm sea, which gave rise to the Carpathian mountain system. In this region, massive beds of calcareous sandstone and silt predominate, forming the ridges of the White Carpathians. In places, more resistant limestone blocks, called "klippes", jut out above the softer, more gently sculpted terrain, much like on the Pálava plateau. These are the factors that give wines from the Strážnice region their solid structure, salinity, and authenticity – but only if one guides them with a gentle hand, without major interventions.

You have a very old vineyard planted with the ancient Frašták variety, trained on a gobelet. Who planted this vineyard, and how did it survive the era of socialism and intensification that so few others did?

The vineyard was probably planted by my grandfather's grandfather, at the end of the 19th century. A few years ago, I noticed people there measuring and drilling into one of the living monuments of the area, a rowan tree, which is typical for Strážnice. I asked what they were doing and if they had permission. After a brief conversation, they took a piece of dried Frašták vine to roughly identify its age. After a short time, I received information that the vineyard's age is just under 130 years, which would correspond to planting around 1890.

Strážnice vineyards are often more than 60 years old, because the conditions of some historical plots weren't suitable for the cooperative machinery of that era, which required flatter terrain for better maneuverability.

Why Frašták specifically, and where did it actually come from? Are you planning to expand its plantings?

I believe it's a white mutation of Kadarka. It's a rare variety cultivated exclusively in the Strážnice area, brought here by the Italian Magnis family from Lombardy. They purchased the Strážnice estate in 1628 and owned it for over 300 years.

Times are different now, and we're planning to plant newly propagated massale cuttings from the old vines on the original part of the vineyard. I want the Frašták variety to be preserved for future generations as well.

Since we're on the subject of expansion, you recently told me you'd acquired some additional old vineyards from the former cooperative, in good condition and with solid genetics. You had me taste an excellent Sauvignon Blanc, unlabeled at the time. Can you be more specific about what new wines we can expect from you?

Land isn't easy to come by in Strážnice, locals guard their plots like hawks. We ain’t called "grajcárci," like a grajcár coin, for nothing [laughs]. Anyways, I finally managed to acquire some very interesting land in an excellent location, let's call it the local "Grand Cru", so we'll see what emerges over time.

I want to focus on single-vineyard wines; the differences here are noticeable. Going forward, I'll be working more with the Sauvignon Blanc you mentioned. As for my essential wines like Riesling, Chardonnay, Blaufrankisch, Pinot Noir, and then Staré keře – a selection of the oldest vines, including Frašták – those remain my staples, only there will be more bottlings.

How do you actually approach wine and its creation in general? My impression is that feeling plays a large role in your work, or am I mistaken?

Yes, feeling and understanding are important in this profession. The foundation of everything is simplicity. I think you can't make sophisticated wine if the grapes don't have it in them. That's where the old plantings help me tremendously — they're capable of producing something interesting, given a certain amount of precision and care from the winemaker. As for winemaking itself, I struggle internally with each detail for a while and I'm never satisfied, because I overthink everything and look for potential problems. It's not ideal; you can't just shake that trait off. On the other hand, it can also push you further.

I often ask myself why people should drink my wine. An elementary question, but it's hard to argue it out for yourself – at least for me. What’s your take? Why should people drink your wine?

That's truly a difficult question. I myself prefer to explore wine from other winemakers, so the answer won't be easy. I think that even within the context of the winemaking backwater that is Strážnice, the genius loci of the local vineyards, or the very rawness of the Carpathians, it's worth giving these wines a chance and trying them. But for me, what's always more important than place and all the "frills" around is the winemaker himself, the person behind it all.

I could ask you about further technical details from the vineyards or cellar, but I'm more curious about what inspires you. I believe that can translate into the wines in an even deeper way.

It may sound like a cliché, but I've always been drawn to Burgundy and Jura. I love their small domaines, where everything radiates fundamentals. Ancient generational transitions, where the best was figured out long ago and experiments are no longer needed. Old barns, an old tractor, and fingers marked by years of all the hard work. All of that is reflected in their wines, which are simply excellent.

I feel similarly about Styria, which I'm frankly fascinated by. The wines are full of power, concentration, and endless finish, real knockouts.

All these areas share a strong expression of the place in the wine. That's my greatest inspiration: to manage to transfer that beauty into a bottle.

What does wine give you, what role does it play in your life, why do you actually drink it? I think it's good to remind ourselves in the current times.

Well, for us, wine is one of many products we grow, make, and consume at home. Self-sufficiency is natural for us – we feed ourselves year-round mostly from our own sources. But unlike vegetables, for most people wine is a superfluous product. I obviously don't see it that way; it's something stronger for me.

Maybe it's professional deformation, but there's hardly a day I don't think about wine. It's a connective element of society, a powerful medium without which local customs wouldn't happen. I'm inspired by a phrase from your question, which applies here doubly.

What challenges and dreams lie ahead of you?

Currently, the biggest challenge and partly stress for me are winery investments – like everyone who didn't have any foundation to begin with, I had to take some loans. That's the harder challenge. My motivation is completing a project I've been carrying in my head.

But there are so many things that it will probably take some time. In any case, what kind of dream would it be if you could make it come true in just one summer [laughs].

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