Milan Nestarec – Danger 380V 2021

One of our most beloved wines, a salty-citrus-exotic undisgorged sparkler born in 2017. With wonderful energy, as the name suggests. Btw the current 2020 edition could easily be called 400V (the voltage currently running through the grid, my friend electrician told me), given the zippy acidity brought by the vintage.
A bit of history: the first time I tried to make sparkling wine in 2012, I bottled it with too much residual sugar and my warehouse became a military zone, with bottles randomly exploding here and there. 5000 of them. (You know, most people, when doing something new, start with a small batch. Like, maybe, 30 bottles. Well, not me. Or you can also have the wine analysed before bottling. Well, not me. Back then, my French importer Fleur just dryly asked whether we even have labs in Moravia or not.)

It took me a bit of time to digest the fact that all this wine and work had gone down the drain, but I eventually got over it and tried again. Fast forward to spring 2017: we’re tasting my second iteration with my wife and it is… freaking awesome! So refreshing, so energetic. Totally fulfilling my wish of capturing the unique young, invigorating energy that wine has during its fermentation. This is such a huge deal to me. Sometimes I wonder if I might have been an electrician in one of my previous lives.As we were drinking this electrifying wine, right next to us, no kidding, stood an electric transformer adorned with that notorious “Danger 380V” sign. And bang! The name & label were born in a sec.A field blend from our sandy vineyard called Sahary. There’s Neuburg for personality, Muller for quantity (that warning on the back label ain’t there for nothing; it drinks veeery easily and we need to make enough of it), and Muscat for some out-of-this-world tropical oomph. I don’t call it pet-nat, because it’s not something that will spray you and everything else within a 3-meter radius unless you chill it to death. I’ve learnt my lesson, it seems.