Head Winemaker · Zlatý Roh
Filip Nagy
Filip Nagy je hlavným vinárom a spolutvorcom butikového vinárstva Zlatý Roh. Vyrastal v rodine, kde vinárstvo nebolo brané ako profesia, ale spôsob, ako sa stôl stáva viac spoločenským. Prvú skúsenosť s výrobou mal u starého otca, pri pergole,
na ktorej sa dorábalo víno z hybridu.
Vyštudoval vinohradníctvo a vinárstvo na Mendelovej univerzite. Vinársku identitu si formoval v moravských Modrých horách a v juhomoravskej Lednici. V roku 2015, krátko pred štátnicami, prijal ponuku riadiť projekt na Devíne.
in Devín
St. Laurent from the 1970s
well below the legal limit
I. Origins
It began with a pergola
Nobody in Filip Nagy's family made wine professionally. There was only his grandfather, who every year made a few dozen liters of wine from a hybrid vine he grew himself on a pergola in front of the house. No technology, no ambitions. Just a steady yearly routine that always brought the family together at the table.
That is where Filip first understood that wine is a social moment. A glass you put into the hand of someone you respect.
He left to study at Mendel University in Brno. There he later learned why things worked in the family's winemaking. And what would have ruined them.
II. School
Brno, Lednice, Modré Hory
Filip počas svojej cesty prešiel aj tromi miestami, na ktorých vždy niečo nové pochopil a niečo si odniesol.
Viticulture and enology at Mendel University. This is where he learned the theory: soil science, climatology, the microbiology of fermentation. Funny enough, the books describe the very things his grandfather had been doing all along.
In Lednice he realized he did not want to sit in a laboratory. He wanted dirt under his fingernails and to make decisions right between the vine rows. That is the direction he has followed since the day he came back from school.
Filip tested the winemaker's craft in the Moravian microregion of Modré Hory, where every decision from soil to bottle was his. There he confirmed that a winemaker is a guide, and that honesty in the glass is not something decided in a meeting.
III. The Road
Bordeaux
The French grower Loïc Pasquet of Bordeaux is a controversial winemaker who went back to own-rooted vineyards, original pre-phylloxera varieties, and the way wine was made in the 19th century.
His way of seeing things made Filip rethink a parcel in Devín that sits on weathered granite with almost no topsoil. A spot he was unsure about at first, he began to see differently. What looked like a flaw suddenly became an asset.
Out of that new perspective came the planting now under way in Devín - own-rooted Frankovka. A long-term experiment, planted without rootstock, a risk worth taking only if the wine is meant to matter.
When planting Pinot Noir we use the Burgundian method of massale selection. Instead of purchased clones, we help select diversity from specific old vineyards. Diversity as insurance against the vintage.
IV. Devín, 2015
The first Veltliner, no label
The first wine he made at Devín went to founder Patrik Tkáč, still without a label. It was the Grüner Veltliner. The positive reaction set the direction for the whole project. Filip has an open relationship with owner Patrik Tkáč and values that Tkáč accepted his very different biodynamic philosophy.
The winery's name, Goldeck, Zlatý Roh in translation, is the original name of this site from maps of the late 19th century. We put the neighboring Purweg site back on the map too.
Goldeck Veltlínske zelené from the restored Devín vineyard sites.
V. Philosophy
Place, Time, People
We don't talk about wine as a product. It is more like a language the place speaks. If the winemaker stays out of the way, the soil, the vintage and nature itself all have their say.
The confluence of the Danube and the Morava. Limestone bedrock, granite fragments, loess. A microclimate no one else in Slovak winemaking has.
A vintage cannot be repeated. The barrel works slowly and with patience. The cellar does not set the pace. The site, the weather and nature do.
The winemaker is a guide. Work done by hand, decisions made in the rows, quiet in the cellar. “People are an inseparable part of the terroir,” says the head winemaker.
VI. The Estate
A winery is more than a vineyard
Biodynamics cannot be done without a living whole around the vineyard.
The estate keeps Jersey cows, goats and poultry. Bees work at the foot of the slope. Manure goes back into the vineyard, and the pollinators keep the surroundings alive. Without animals, biodynamics would be nothing but a paper certificate.
Outside Zlatý Roh he looks for the same thing he makes: honest wines from honest winemakers who stand behind every bottle. What he picks up in someone else's cellar often comes back to Devín as a concrete decision about a barrel or a harvest.
Marketing wines with no winemaker behind them. Technologically polished projects that won't offend anyone but have nothing to say either. At Zlatý Roh, every vintage is decided knowing we sign our name to the things we chose not to do as well.
VII. Zlatý Roh in the media
Interviews and features
About biodynamics, about Devín, about life and about investing.
Taste Devín
Come for a tasting right in the vineyard above Devín Castle. The head winemaker and our sommeliers will personally walk you through the vines and open bottles that rarely make it into regular distribution.
