Pivnica Čajkov

Pivnica Čajkov Wines from under the Sitno volcano - the landscape of traditions and contrasts at the northern border of Central Europe

The vine keeps the scoreThis winter marked a return to what we knew before – long periods of snow cover and temperatures...
23/02/2026

The vine keeps the score

This winter marked a return to what we knew before – long periods of snow cover and temperatures well below zero. Not -31°C like ten years ago, but -17°C is still pretty impressive, especially after a decade of warmth.

I couldn't be more grateful for nature hitting pause – despite what many believe, a new vintage isn't a reset. Rather a new chapter in the life of wine, written in the language of everything that came before — the drought, the heat, the stress the vines experienced — all carried forward and mirrored in the vintages to come.

The vine keeps the score, to paraphrase Bessel van der Kolk.

Cold winters like this are a chance for the vines and the landscape to stabilize, to breathe, to let the frost do what it does best: clear the slate without erasing the story. So we're watching. We're hopeful. 🌿❄️

Restaurant highlight: Marie B, Prague is open, brave, delivering. I really like that their (carte blanche) tasting menu ...
05/02/2026

Restaurant highlight: Marie B, Prague is open, brave, delivering. I really like that their (carte blanche) tasting menu is just the right amount of dishes – you don't always need 18 courses, right? Marie serves it short and sweet with 5: a greeting from the kitchen, 3 courses and dessert, which is more than enough.

Although, when they smartly offered me an extra course – a foam made of a well-matured tvarůžky cheese and truffle, I was happy to oblige. I'm usually skeptical of truffle shavings on everything just for the sake of it, but this particular combo is a wow match – a true "story of an unlikely friendship", as a film synopsis would say :D

It's authentic and rare – this stinky aged curd being typically Czech, you can't eat it anywhere else in the world. And it's also quite ballsy as I'm sure that the taste is quite out there for certain people, especially if they've never heard of tvarůžky before. I like a restaurant with a point of view and courage.

Add a well-rounded Barolo to it (the joyful wine list also sports our wines, including a vertical of our Empress, but I'll leave that for you guys to enjoy .) and it gives me one of the best value for money dining experiences in Prague – so shout out to .zdenek and the whole team 🔥

Did somebody say bubbles?Séria degustácií Wine Up, kde sa s vami delíme o vína z "pracovných" ciest, pokračuje druhým sú...
10/09/2025

Did somebody say bubbles?
Séria degustácií Wine Up, kde sa s vami delíme o vína z "pracovných" ciest, pokračuje druhým súbojom bublín: 6 elegantných francúzskych grower Champagne vs. 2 x "ako to vidí Sitno" + jedno prekvapenie naslepo (hotový sparkling celebrity death match! :D)

📅 18. 9. 2025, 18:00
📍 Hotel Golden Eagle Levice
🎟️ 85 €

Miesta sú limitované, treba vopred rezervovať na [email protected]

🧐 Wine Up (alebo stand-up? .) s "Grapefatherom" je neformálna degustácia, priestor pre zdieľanie a diskusiu o nevšedných vínach, živote a radosti všetkého druhu. Lebo radosť, ako aj takéto fľaše hors-ordinaire, sa potencujú dobrou spoločnosťou...

07/08/2025

Osada, (y)our Holešovice living room, where you come for a coffee/brunch and stay for the wine selection by the one and only .bramborova

Meet Bára and her casual yet thoughtful approach to wine in , our series celebrating people who understand and share the Čajkov vision, work and philosophy, and do the uber-important work of relaying them to their guests 🙏

24/06/2025

Čajkov: Prague Pours, our new series celebrating people who serve (our wines). While winemakers are usually the ones in the spotlight, we’d be all alone in our cellars – drunk and sad, most likely 😅 –without the women and men who get our vision, work, philosophy, and communicate them to their customers.

I cherish these encounters and relationships, so vital to me as a winemaker – I basically make wine so that I can eat in these places and talk to these people. Getting to know my wine through a different perspective with them.

Lukáš from is one such person, building a thoughtful, “healthy vineyard” wine list worthy of the restaurant's culinary savoir faire, breathtaking settings and ambition. And I’m very proud and happy that our wines – Queen Mom and Princess – can be part of this journey.

🙏 for the drive and dedication – and sharing them with us!

Přidejte se k nám ve čtvrtek 22. května v na večer s vinařem! Marek Uhnák aka bude rozlívat jak šarmantně lehoučkou Pr...
15/05/2025

Přidejte se k nám ve čtvrtek 22. května v na večer s vinařem! Marek Uhnák aka bude rozlívat jak šarmantně lehoučkou Princess, tak vyhlášené oranžády, čerstvé novinky, a samo přijde i Vulcanica.. (a možná i super-fresh letní drink z ní).

Krátká řízená degustace s Markem proběhne vždycky v celou (18, 19, 20:00), mezitím můžete při večeři v zahradě vesele a volně popíjet vína Pivnica Čajkov po skleničce, nebo se s Markem zastavit na kus řeči o víně, životě a vším mezi tím.

Vulkanický zážitek zaručen! Rezervace na https://www.bistrokarel.cz/rezervace

I came across these pics from around 2004/5. A galaxy far far away😄 Oh boy were we struggling – selling bulk wine for 70...
06/02/2025

I came across these pics from around 2004/5. A galaxy far far away😄 Oh boy were we struggling – selling bulk wine for 70c/litre, buying grapes around Čajkov, no own productive vineyards. It's mind-blowing to think back and then look at where we are now. How things can change in 20 years.

I get chills when I look at these pictures and remember that time: the business going from bad to worse, the overall "culture" back then, the debts... But I also see a determined young man who may not have had concrete-shaped dreams but certainly had some... probably bigger than himself. (We're so determined by what's around us – I was positive that we couldn't live off anything else than cheap bulk. Who/why would buy wine for more?! When you are in a certain social milieu, you can't even fathom that there are other people with different needs.)

Had someone told me back then that I would be living the life I do now, producing wine priced definitely in the upper tier of Slovakia and exporting it to 20+ countries, I would have looked at them as if they had chewed on a particularly juicy magic mushroom. 😂😵‍💫

During these 20 years, we went through so much s**t – bankruptcy, terrible clients, debts and settlements. I made multiple pivots, from bulk wine to brick&mortar, semi-dry Leánka (God have mercy :D), until, in 2011, I started playing with some ideas that paved the way to where we are now.

It's proof that we need to have dreams bigger than we can even imagine. Like Alice in Wonderland: imagine at least 5 impossible things every day! And then not only get them but sometimes even go further. And even if only half of them come true, it's still a very good result.
So I'm officially reminding myself to keep thinking this way: to dream dreams that seem like they can't be fulfilled.

I don't want to sound self-congratulatory, I know there are people who have achieved far more professionally during the same time, built billions-worth-businnesses.

But for me, it's a source of not only optimism but also faith: be determined and pursue your goals, not let your morale sink; one day, you can then look back and tell yourself Gee, that was probably worth it!

Rare wine tasting alert!Séria degustácií Wine Up, kde sa s vami delím o vína zo svojich „pracovných“ ciest, pokračuje s ...
02/12/2024

Rare wine tasting alert!
Séria degustácií Wine Up, kde sa s vami delím o vína zo svojich „pracovných“ ciest, pokračuje s "Best in Show 2024". Výber toho, čo ma tento rok najviac zaujalo.

Pestrý výber štýlov, farieb, regiónov a emócií... Champagne a Jura nemôžu chýbať, k tomu zopár ikonických Talianov... Vybrané vína spája nielen skvelo zvládnuté remeslo a terroir – veď ide o dnes už legendárnych vinárstiev – ale aj to, že som ich vybral s človekom, ktorý sa vínu profesionálne venuje už nejaký piatok. Spolu s ním nazrieme do sveta vín z trochu inej perspektívy.

A samozrejme ochutnáme aj vína, ktoré ešte len zrejú v našej pivnici a v . ( Sitno nebude sedieť v kúte!)

Tentoraz sa stretneme v Bratislave, konkrétne na Grösslingovej, v unikátnom priestore Solo Spirits Atelier (aka komorný exkluzívny tasting room dovozcu ušľachtilých destilátov Solo spirits.

📅 11/12/2024 o 18:00 Best in Show 2024
Solo Spirits Atelier, Bratislava

🎟️ CENA: 120 € / miesta sú limitované, treba si ich vopred rezervovať na [email protected]

Wine Up (alebo stand-up? 😆) s „Grapefathrom“ je neformálna degustácia a spoločenské stretnutie, kde zdieľame a diskutujeme o nevšedných vínach a živote, aj o rozmarnostiach všetkého druhu. Lebo všetko toto je najlepšie zdieľať v spoločnosti, ktorá má z objavovania chutí a ideí rovnakú vášnivú radosť ako ja. 🙏

Tešíme sa na vás!

Warsaw I'm coming 🌋See you 17 – 18/11 at the Warsaw Wine Experience @ Fabryka Norblina and also around town!Can't wait t...
13/11/2024

Warsaw I'm coming 🌋

See you 17 – 18/11 at the Warsaw Wine Experience @ Fabryka Norblina and also around town!

Can't wait to capture more tilted buildings and extremely blurred moments of joy with the crew & community of my beloved Polish importer Natural Rascal & Bar Rascal! 😆🍾

Disgorge or not to disgorge?..that is the question! Lingering in the back of my mind ever since I started to experiment ...
10/11/2024

Disgorge or not to disgorge?
..that is the question! Lingering in the back of my mind ever since I started to experiment trying to finetune and understand our flagship Vulcanica bubbles.

On one hand, less lees means a leaner and more precise result; on the other, lees, as the mother of the wine, are super important for the re-fermentation process.

It's a crucial yet challenging balance to strike, which we've clearly seen in the last few years, as we are kickstarting the second fermentation with fresh must that's cleaner, with less "dense grape leftover material" than before.

We're also using a higher proportion of base wines (yes, Vulcanica is not a petnat. Neither it is a methode traditionelle, it lives in a category of its own .)) These 2 tweaks make the wine more elegant, but also longer to ferment.

And then there's the question of keeping the yeast in the bottle once the wine has gone through the prise de mousse and is ready to fly. Just recently, I thought that disgorgement is the new way to go, but tbh, having tasted through both the current Vulcanica #8 and #8.1, as well as the different older editions (rigorously! 😅), I see that... yeast is still a feast!

Yeasts create a richer, smoother version of the wine, like when you add butter to the pan and it makes the sauce rounder and creamier, more wholesome.

At the end of the day, the beauty is that, unlike Hamlet, we can have it both ways 😅🙏
For fun, diversity, learning curve, richness of experience... I want to continue making Vulcanica in both its "full-fat" original undisgorged version as well as the more "architectural & n**e" disgorged one, indulging in this curious journey. Do follow me 🌋

Address

Cajkov

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Pivnica Čajkov posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Pivnica Čajkov:

Shortcuts

Share

Category