At the invitation of the Ministry of Agriculture, the chairman and president of the Great Wines of Great Vineyards attended on Monday, April 15, 2019 a joint meeting at ÚKZÚZ in Brno with representatives of the Food Department of the Ministry with the participation of Deputy Minister Ing. Jindřich Fialka, representatives of SZPI, ÚKZÚZ, Guild of Czech Winemakers, Association of Winemakers and Wine Association, where they had the opportunity to present their proposal to solve the two basic stages of categorization of vineyards. See the vineyard section for an updated proposal.
The Representatives of the AoW CR informed without any further details about their proposal for an appellation system in the Czech Republic, which should be based on existing VOCs. Any details are missing on the website of AoW CR. There is only a press release dated 20 March 2019: “On the way to the Appellation System of the Czech Republic, a questionnaire for winemakers to the appellation system dated 14 March 2019, which contains 21 questions, 15 of which are about VOC – see VOC analysis below, extract from the minutes of the Board of Directors of the AoW CZ dated 1 February 2019 and Proposal for Solution of the Appelation System in the Czech Republic – 8 images relating de facto only to the creation of the Appelation Committee and its funding.
According to the information available to us, there are currently 12 VOC associations in the Czech Republic with a total of 116 members, which is 0.7% of all 17,568 vine growers in the Czech Republic (respectively 1.1% of growers if we do not consider 7,406 growers with vineyards up to 0.1 ha – as of 31 January 2018). The area of all vineyards of VOC members represents only 7.8% of the total area of 17,877.02 ha of wine grape vines in the Czech Republic (data as of 11 April 2019). In 2017, wines of VOC members were produced in the amount of 374,404 liters, which represents 0.57% of approximately 660,000 hl of annual production of the Czech Republic. Of the total of 12 VOCs, 8 VOCs (66.7%) have only 6 or fewer members. More than 70% of the questions of the SV CR questionnaire cover this extent of VOC production. A total of 18 varieties are grown in all 12 VOCs, of which 9 are in a single VOC. On the other hand, Riesling is allowed at 9 VOCs, Pinot noir and Pinot blanc at 4 VOCs, Vlachian Riesling at 3 VOCs, Blue Frankisch, Pinot gris, Sylvaner, Traminer and Grüner Veltliner at 2 VOCs. Production parameters are often diametrically different in individual VOCs – from the interesting yield limitation to the maximum yield allowed by the law, on the one hand the recommendation of cuvée production from authorized varieties, on the other hand their prohibition, on the one hand, minimum time for wine aging on yeast, on the other hand prohibition of this procedure, etc.
Further news in this area will be followed and continuously published.