Iva Měřínská is a daughter of a long-time winemaker in Žabčice, in Southern Moravia. Her father started making wine in 1974, at age 15, and they still work with a tiny vineyard behind their cellar that he planted around that time. Most of their wines come from a charming rolling plot between two woods, planted in the 1990s when Mr. Měřínský officially registered as a winemaker and also built their cellar. 

Iva originally thought it quite unlikely that she would follow in her father's footsteps, opting for a career in HR instead, but sometime in her thirties, the pull of the vine got too strong. And so she decided to change her life, study winemaking in Lednice – and also bring a fresh perspective into the family winery, inspired by the natural wine movement and her discovery of orange wines.

Originally working conventionally, her father stopped using sulfur in the cellar from 2015, and they made first qvevri-aged wines in 2017. Some of their wines are still made for their “traditional clientele”, but the proportion of natural wines grows each year, because, as Iva says, “that’s where our heart is. We love orange wines.” Her father agrees: “the world is full of well-made reductive wines, but they all tend to taste the same, and I see that many people start to drink something more authentic. Making wines naturally means much more adrenaline in the cellar, but it’s well worth it,” he smiles.

The vineyard is taken care of mainly by Iva’s father, who keeps them in good shape (working in integrated agriculture, i.e. keeping grass between vines and using treatments only when necessary). The grapes are hand-harvested and then processed in the cellar whose stable temperature allows for long macerations – the wines made in barrels (acacia and oak) stay on skins for about  6-8 weeks. “This cellar is so naturally cold that we actually sometimes have to bring the barrels upstairs in the winter, otherwise they would have a hard time finishing their malolactic fermentation,” explains Iva’s father.

Good part of the wines is aged in qvevri, for at least 8 months, that she had shipped from Georgia and then buried in her garden, because she enjoys the idiosyncratic tannins of wines aged in these ancient vessels. All wines undergo spontaneous fermentation and are unfiltered and unfined, with only minimal sulfuring at bottling.