Natural vinegars and ciders from the Sudkův Důl fortress
We wanted to eat clean. So we moved to a farm at Sudkův Důl stronghold. To raise animals, grow, forage and ferment. Without industrial methods. To make clean, nutritious, healthy food. And drinks. For our family and the friends who often visit.
In the age of industrial denaturation of foods and beverages, our ciders and vinegars seem almost utopian. No spraying in orchards! Neutral oak casks, spontaneous fermentations, no added sulphites. UTOPIA’s unfuckedwithedness is rare.
Over five hundred years, the fortress was home to Dorota, Petronila, and many other women. Each oak cask carries one of their names. Each autumn we fill it with a different multi-variety juice. Each, after a year, offers a cider of its own character. We blend two casks into each batch of just a few hundred bottles. With those two names on every label.
After a year, we pump some of our ciders up to the warm attic. There, in oak vinegar casks, the original slow Orléans method produces complex vinegars with a delicate aroma and flavour – suitable for drinking, too. Macerating raspberries, sour cherries, dried plums, wild thyme, chilli peppers, blackcurrants, elderflowers ... adds further layers of flavour and aroma. We do not pasteurise our vinegars or add sulphites; we only filter them coarsely. They are used by Michelin-starred restaurants in the Czech Republic and London.
Drinking vinegars
Complex and delicate in flavour and aroma, made using the original slow Orléans method.
taste fine vinegars
„Total brainfuck!“
„The most intense acidity you can think of, together with the most intense sweetness. Most amazing satisfaction.“ Ania Smelskaya, Head Sommelier, SILO London about UTOPIA Patience
taste the dessert ice ciderForget cider
Undisquised by usual layers of force carbonation and sweetening, still, dry UTOPIA presents an honest glou-glou experience resembling natural wines rather than conventional ciders.
taste still dry ciders
Utopic bubbles
Ciders naturally made sparkling through in-bottle fermentation of apple juice, without artificial carbonation. Petnats, perlants, skin contacts — bottled fun.
taste sparkling dry ciders►PLAY
Highly entertaining, gently sparkling apple-grape co-ferments. Playful cooperations with natural winemakers.
taste ►PLAY
Cellar tastings, vouchers
Taste 4 styles of UTOPIA ciders and 8 drinking vinegars. Visit our cask cellar and the uniquely conserved late Gothic fort, a protected cultural monument.
visit or gift UTOPIA♥️
When our first vintage (2016) was fermenting in casks, not in our wildest dreams did we imagine, that in just a few years people in the US, Denmark, UK, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Italy would be enjoying our bottles. Thank you Jan, Ondra, Zdeněk, Lucie, Martin, Phil, Jiří, Zain, Ania, Marko, Jára, Milan, Hideharu, Sanna, Karl, Can, Antonio, thank y'all our distributors, festival directors, sommeliers, chefs, winemakers, drinkers and friends. Thank you for making our journey possible. And cheers to La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise* Praha, Alma Praha, Eska Praha, Hiša Franko**, Ottolenghi Rovi London, SILO London, Ikoyi** London, Mountain* London, Brat* London, KOL* London, Evelyn's Table* London, taubenkobel, IRIN Bratislava and all the places that have poured highland apple wines born in our tiny li’l village.
In 2016, we established our cider apple orchard. Czech heritage varieties, promising bittersweet local wild seedlings, British cider varieties.
2.5 hectares. The orchard floor and soil bustling with life. No spraying, no vole poisons. Just the neighbour’s horse manure and our apple pomace compost. The foxes take care of the voles. Years will pass before the first real harvest. Selected rootstocks slowly grow big, vigorous trees.
A healthy cider apple orchard - in 50 years hopefully as magnificent as the old orchards that we are privileged to harvest now. Endlessly grateful to all, who planted them heritage apples 60, 70, 80 years ago.
