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Vinařství Jaroslav Springer

Organic Pinot Noir estate in Bořetice, Moravia, founded in 2004 by a former US Ambassador, his brother, and Moravian winemaker Jaroslav Springer. More than 75% of the 22-hectare estate is planted to Pinot Noir, farmed organically since 2007 and vinified with minimal sulfur dioxide.

The producer

In 2004, Craig Stapleton was still serving as US Ambassador to the Czech Republic when he and his brother Benjamin, a lawyer, joined with Moravian winemaker Jaroslav Springer to plant Pinot Noir in Bořetice. The commitment was specific from the start: one grape, farmed organically in a region with almost no commercial Pinot Noir precedent, vinified with minimal sulfur dioxide. Over 75% of the 22-hectare estate went to Pinot Noir immediately, and that proportion has not changed. Jaroslav now works alongside his son Tomáš.

The estate converted to fully organic management in 2007 and holds EU organic certification, a decision made years before organic certification became routine across Central Europe. The winemaking approach draws on the example of Nicolas Joly, the Loire Valley grower who made biodynamic viticulture visible internationally, and sulfur dioxide is kept to a minimum throughout. The range runs four wines from one grape: two reds from named parcels Čtvrtě and Skale, a Blanc de Pinot Noir, and an orange-style wine. The wines reach London through merchant Lea and Sandeman.

Known for

Pinot Noir across four styles: parcel red (Čtvrtě), red (Roučí), blanc de pinot noir, and orange

Notable facts

The story

The Ambassador's Vineyard

Craig Stapleton was still living in Prague, working as US Ambassador, when he and his brother Benjamin first talked seriously about planting a vineyard in Moravia. The conversation moved fast. By 2004 the three partners had agreed terms, brought Jaroslav Springer in as winemaker, and planted Pinot Noir in Bořetice, a village where the grape had almost no commercial history. Stapleton had spent years watching Czech agricultural land and its possibilities from his post, and the diplomatic assignment had made him unusually well-placed to see what a committed small producer might do with a cool-climate site and a single serious grape. Three years later, Jaroslav walked the vineyards and decided to convert them fully to organic management, before organic wine had become a routine marketing category in Central Europe. The soil, in his view, needed to be treated as something alive rather than a growing medium to be corrected. Nicolas Joly had made the same argument for the Loire. Bořetice would make it for Moravia.

From the atlas

Vinařství Jaroslav Springer

At A Glance

The Producer

In 2004, Craig Stapleton was still serving as US Ambassador to the Czech Republic when he and his brother Benjamin, a lawyer, joined with Moravian winemaker Jaroslav Springer to plant Pinot Noir in Bořetice. The partnership was deliberate and specific: one grape, farmed organically in a region with almost no commercial Pinot Noir precedent, vinified with minimal sulfur dioxide. Most of their 22-hectare estate went to Pinot Noir from the start, over 75% of plantings, and that proportion has not changed.

Jaroslav Springer now works alongside his son Tomáš. The family side of the estate has deepened while the founding idea has remained constant: Moravia can grow serious Pinot Noir.

Place

Bořetice is a village in Moravia, the southern Czech wine region that runs along the Austrian and Slovak borders and accounts for the large majority of Czech wine production. The climate here is continental, with warm summers that allow Pinot Noir to ripen fully, and cool nights that preserve the acidity the grape needs to carry colour and age. Bořetice sits in the southern part of the Moravian wine country, in a landscape of rolling vineyards and limestone-influenced soils.

Pinot Noir is not the Moravian default. The region has historically leaned on white varieties, and Pinot Noir is grown in small quantities by a small number of producers. At Stapleton-Springer, the grape choice is a position as much as an agronomic decision: the estate exists to argue that Moravian Pinot Noir belongs in the same conversation as Central European Pinot from Austria or Germany.

Soil And Site

The estate operates across two named primary parcels, Čtvrtě and Skale, which together cover 5 hectares and hold 24,000 vines. Both sites sit within the larger 22-hectare estate holding. Čtvrtě produces fruit with damson and softer plum character, reflecting its elevation and soil composition. Skale provides a distinct counterpart, though specific soil and elevation data for this site are not fully documented in available sources.

The vine density and parcel-level separation suggest a deliberate approach to site expression: each named parcel is harvested and vinified to show its own character rather than blended into a single estate wine.

Story

The founding agreement in 2004 brought together three people with very different backgrounds: a diplomat who had spent years observing Czech civic and agricultural life from his post in Prague, his lawyer brother, and a Moravian winemaker with local knowledge of the land. Craig Stapleton's ambassador role gave him access to the Czech Republic at a particular moment of post-accession optimism, when the country had recently joined the European Union and when small-scale quality wine production was beginning to find its footing.

Three years after founding, in 2007, the estate moved its vineyards to fully organic management and pursued EU organic certification. The decision came early, before organic certification became a standard marketing move across Central Europe, and it reflected a considered philosophy rather than a response to market pressure. The winemaking approach was shaped explicitly by the example of Nicolas Joly, the Loire Valley grower who made biodynamic viticulture visible to an international audience. Joly's argument, that the soil is a living system and that the winemaker's job is to work with rather than against it, became a reference point at Bořetice. Sulfur dioxide use was cut to a minimum as a direct extension of that thinking.

The wines now reach London through merchant Lea and Sandeman, one of the few Czech producers to secure that distribution route.

Vineyards And Cellar

Organic farming at Bořetice means no synthetic pesticides or herbicides in the vineyard. The estate uses environmentally-friendly agents for vine protection and follows integrated, sustainable management principles. The 24,000 vines across Čtvrtě and Skale are maintained at a density and by practices consistent with producing fruit suitable for minimal-intervention winemaking.

In the cellar, sulfur dioxide use is kept low throughout the winemaking process. This approach, common in natural and biodynamic cellars, reduces chemical protection during fermentation and ageing and places greater demand on the quality of incoming fruit. The minimal-intervention philosophy extends from the vineyard into the winery without a break. Oak use and élevage specifics are not confirmed in available sources.

Wines

The range is built entirely around Pinot Noir, expressed across three distinct styles. The red Roučí cuvée offers lifted red cherry-skin notes and hints of strawberry: the fruit is light and perfumed, with the kind of freshness that comes from high-acid Pinot grown in a cool-night continental climate. The Čtvrtě vineyard wine carries damson and softer plum, a fuller, rounder fruit register that reflects the parcel's elevation and soil character. These two reds show the range of expression the estate draws from one grape across its named sites.

The Blanc de Pinot Noir presses the whole grapes quickly to avoid colour extraction and produces a white wine from a red grape: the nose carries acacia flowers, peach and nectarine, with none of the red fruit of the red wines. The orange wine takes a different route entirely, macerating the skins to produce a deep onion-skin colour. It reads, in the glass, like a copper-toned rosé with more grip and a broader, more tannic texture than either the white or the red cuvées.

Four wines. One grape. Each style is a different argument for what Pinot Noir can do in Moravia.

In The Glass

The Roučí red is the lightest expression in the range: red cherry-skin, strawberry, a lifted nose with the translucency that Pinot Noir produces when it is grown organically and vinified without heavy sulfur dioxide. The mouth is fresh, with moderate tannin and an acid line that keeps the wine moving. It does not try to be Burgundy; it is lighter and more immediate than that.

The Čtvrtě red is fuller. Damson and plum replace the strawberry register of Roučí, the tannin is slightly firmer, and the finish lingers a little longer. The difference between the two reds is real and traceable to the parcels: Čtvrtě is the heavier, more soil-driven wine.

The Blanc de Pinot Noir sits between a serious rosé and a white wine in weight. Acacia and stone fruit on the nose, with a clean, dry finish and enough acidity to eat well alongside food. The orange wine is broader and more textured: the skin contact adds tannin and depth, and the onion-skin colour signals a wine that sits outside the usual rosé register entirely.

A Bottle To Understand It

The Čtvrtě vineyard Pinot Noir is the right first bottle from this estate. It is the wine that most directly connects the named parcel to the glass: damson and plum fruit from a specific elevated site, organic farming, minimal sulfur dioxide in the cellar, and the freshness that Moravian nights give to Pinot Noir. The tannin is present but not heavy, and the acidity runs clean through the finish. It is not an imitation of anything from Burgundy or the German Spätburgunder tradition. It is a Moravian red wine made from a grape that almost no one in this region grows seriously, and it earns its place in that argument.

Anecdote

Craig Stapleton was still living in Prague, working as US Ambassador, when he and his brother Benjamin first talked seriously about planting a vineyard in Moravia. The conversation moved fast. By 2004, the three partners had agreed terms, brought Jaroslav Springer in as winemaker, and planted Pinot Noir in Bořetice, a village where the grape had almost no commercial history. Stapleton had spent years watching Czech agricultural land and its possibilities from his post; the diplomatic assignment had made him unusually well-placed to see what a committed small producer might do with a cool-climate site and a single serious grape. Three years later, Jaroslav walked the vineyards and decided to convert them fully to organic management. The decision was made before organic wine had become a routine marketing category in Central Europe. The soil, in Jaroslav's view, needed to be treated as something alive rather than a growing medium to be corrected. Nicolas Joly, whom the team had studied carefully, had made the same argument for the Loire. Bořetice would make it for Moravia.

Final Word

Stapleton-Springer sits at the unusual intersection of diplomatic biography and serious wine farming. The founding story is concrete and retellable. The commitment to organic viticulture since 2007 and to Pinot Noir as the estate's entire reason for being gives the wines a clear focus. Moravia is still an unfamiliar address for most wine buyers outside Central Europe, and Pinot Noir is still an uncommon grape in the region. These bottles offer both: a specific place, a well-argued grape, and a range that shows what one variety can do across four distinct styles.

Sources

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