From the atlas
Vinařství Karel Novotný
At A Glance
Location: Milotice u Kyjova, South Moravia, Czech Republic Vineyards: approximately 2 hectares Annual production: approximately 20,000 bottles Grapes: Riesling, Chardonnay, Pálava, Tramín červený, Pinot Noir, Dornfelder Range tiers: FIGURE (extended cellar method), ELEMENTS (aromatic, fruit-forward) First bottle: Riesling FIGURE 2022
The Producer
Karel Novotný farms 2 hectares of vines in the Šidleny vineyard lane outside Milotice u Kyjova, a village in South Moravia, and makes wine in batches small enough that each variety gets individual attention from harvest to bottle. In 2023 he was named Enologist of the Year at the Czech national wine competition, a national professional award given to a winery whose total output would fit in a single shipping container. The gap between scale and recognition is the point of entry here.
The estate bottles whites, rosé, and reds across a portfolio that divides into two named tiers. FIGURE wines are single-variety, dry, and built around a specific cellar method. ELEMENTS wines are aromatic, fruit-forward, and designed for earlier drinking. The distinction is a production philosophy made legible on the shelf.
Place
Milotice u Kyjova sits in the South Moravian wine region, the warmest and most vine-dense part of the Czech Republic. The Moravian wine region stretches across a broad arc south of Brno and runs toward the Austrian border. The climate is continental: warm summers with enough sun to ripen Pinot Noir and Tramín červený, and cool nights that hold acidity in the white wines.
The Šidleny vineyard lane gives the estate its address and its orientation. Moravia's wine villages are typically strung along vineyard corridors like this one, each lane carrying a name that locals use as a locator. Milotice u Kyjova is a village-scale growing address, not a classified cru, but it sits in a part of Moravia where vine cultivation has been continuous for centuries and the warmth is sufficient for the aromatic grape varieties that define the regional character: Pálava, Tramín červený, Riesling.
Soil And Site
Specific soil composition for the Šidleny parcels is not confirmed in sources. South Moravia's vineyard geology is varied: the eastern flats carry loess and clay, the hillside sites include limestone and loam. Milotice u Kyjova's position in the warmer, flatter part of the region points toward loess-influenced soils that retain heat and support the aromatic whites that make up the majority of the estate's range. Soil details beyond that remain unconfirmed and are not asserted here.
Story
The estate operates on a production scale where every decision is a personal one. Two hectares means Karel Novotný is in the vineyard for every harvest, making the hand-picking call on each row. Twenty thousand bottles a year means the cellar is not a facility for averaging out: each batch is discrete, and a poor choice in one wine shows directly.
The two-tier architecture, FIGURE and ELEMENTS, reflects a deliberate split between method-led wines and grape-led wines. FIGURE takes one variety and applies extended cellar work: lees contact, concrete vessels, slow ageing. ELEMENTS takes the grape's natural aromatics and moves it to bottle without heavy intervention. The split avoids the trap of a single house style stretched across varieties that want different treatment. Riesling in concrete, sur lie for seven months, becomes something different from Riesling bottled young. The range architecture makes that contrast visible rather than buried.
The 2023 Enologist of the Year award, given at the Czech national wine competition alongside a category win for the estate's Pinot Noir, was the first major external signal that work done at this address was operating above what the scale might suggest.
Vineyards And Cellar
The winery hand-harvests grapes for limited-batch production. Hand picking at this scale allows selection at the vine rather than on a sorting table: bunches come in at the cellar in condition. The winery combines what it describes as traditional methods with modern technology, a pairing that in practice means the cellar is equipped for precise temperature control and clean fermentation while the farming and harvest remain manual.
The clearest example of cellar method in the FIGURE tier is the Riesling FIGURE 2022. After fermentation, the wine rested sur lie, meaning it stayed in contact with its spent yeast cells, in concrete vessels for seven months. Concrete is a material choice with consequences: it is thermally stable, does not add wood tannin or oak character, and allows slow, micro-oxygenated maturation without the reductive tightness of stainless steel. Seven months on the lees in that environment builds texture and body, adds a yeast-derived breadth to the mid-palate, and integrates the honey and raisin character that shows in the finished wine. The wine shows honey and raisin character.
The ELEMENTS tier bypasses extended ageing in favour of preserving the grape's primary fruit and floral character: rose and violet from Tramín červený, orange peel from Pálava, white chocolate and yellow fruit from Chardonnay. These are not wines built for development in the bottle; they are built to be clear and immediate from opening.
Wines
The range at Vinařství Karel Novotný divides cleanly into two tiers, each with a different job.
FIGURE is the method-led tier. Single variety, dry, extended cellar time. The anchor bottle is Riesling FIGURE 2022: seven months sur lie in concrete, dry, with honey and raisin aromatics and the textural weight that lees contact builds into the mid-palate. FIGURE wines reward a few minutes in the glass before drinking.
ELEMENTS is the aromatic, fruit-forward tier. Whites and reds designed for earlier drinking, where the grape's natural character takes the lead:
- Tramín červený ELEMENTS 2022 (Gewurztraminer): rose and violet aromatics, the signature floral register of the variety
- Pálava ELEMENTS: dry style with orange peel character; Pálava is a Moravian cross of Müller-Thurgau and Tramín červený, bred for aromatic whites
- Chardonnay ELEMENTS: white chocolate and ripe yellow fruit, broad and aromatic
- Pinot Noir 2020 ELEMENTS: plum preserve and dark chocolate on the palate, a red built on fruit and soft tannin
- Dornfelder: dark chocolate aromas with blueberry jam on the palate, a deep-coloured red with fruit-forward character
The total portfolio runs to more than thirty labels, but the FIGURE/ELEMENTS split organises the range for a new buyer: FIGURE for cellar-method whites, ELEMENTS for primary-fruit drinking.
In The Glass
Riesling FIGURE 2022 opens with honey and dried raisin on the nose, the aromatic signature of Riesling that has spent time in contact with its lees. In the mouth the texture is fuller than you would expect from a young Central European Riesling: the concrete vessel and seven months sur lie have built body and a rounded mid-palate without any oak character. The acidity is there but cushioned. The finish carries the raisin note through and settles cleanly.
The ELEMENTS whites each stay close to their grape's natural expression. Tramín červený gives rose petal and violet from the first pour, fragrant and immediate. Pálava, Moravia's own aromatic white, is dry here with orange peel lifting the nose. Chardonnay ELEMENTS is broad and yellow-fruited, with white chocolate softness through the palate. These are direct, varietal-true wines with short cellar needs.
The reds in the ELEMENTS tier are built around fruit weight rather than tannin. Pinot Noir 2020 ELEMENTS carries plum preserve and dark chocolate, with soft edges and an approachable palate. Dornfelder, a German red variety that performs well in the warm parts of Moravia, shows dark chocolate aromas and blueberry jam through the mid-palate, deeply coloured and fruit-rich.
A Bottle To Understand It
Riesling FIGURE 2022 is the bottle that shows what this estate is doing above its size. It is a dry Riesling, fermented and then aged for seven months sur lie in a concrete vessel, and the cellar work shows clearly in the glass. The texture is richer than a simple varietal Riesling, the mid-palate fuller, the honey and raisin aromatics integrated rather than primary. There is no oak. The acidity stays present but is cushioned by the lees contact. It is a Riesling built for the table rather than for aperitif drinking, and it is the wine that explains why Karel Novotný was being watched at a national level in 2023.
Anecdote
In 2023, the results of the Czech national wine competition came back with Karel Novotný's name attached to the top professional award: Enologist of the Year. The same competition had also given a category win to the estate's Pinot Noir. Novotný farms 2 hectares in the Šidleny vineyard lane outside Milotice u Kyjova and produces roughly 20,000 bottles a year, a volume that most larger Czech producers release in a single variety. The award is given across the entire national field, from industrial producers to cooperative cellars to estate bottlers. A winery of this size taking the enologist title at a national level is the kind of result that tends to travel in wine circles before the bottles do. The Pinot Noir sat in the cellar in Milotice, and the country had apparently been paying attention.
Final Word
Vinařství Karel Novotný is a small Moravian estate that farms carefully, produces in limited batches, and makes two tiers of wine with genuinely different jobs. The FIGURE line applies cellar method to single varieties; the ELEMENTS line puts aromatic grape character forward without intervention. Riesling FIGURE 2022, aged sur lie in concrete, is the right first bottle.
Sources
- https://www.karel-novotny.cz/
- https://mojelahve.cz/vinarstvi/vinarstvi-karel-novotny-1046
- https://www.viavini.shop/vinarstvi-karel-novotny/