Pałac Mierzęcin – have you ever participated in a vintage?

Do you like wine? 🙂 That’s a silly question!! I know, I know… almost everyone likes wine… moreover, it has been lately becoming more and more popular in Poland – we have it more often, we know more about it, vineries are packed… We buy wine shelves and special fridges; we bring back wine from our journeys… We have it with dinner and we go out for wine with friends. We also have quite a lot of wine, although our wine supply from our special wine shelf has significantly dropped since we stocked it in summer 2011. We were travelling around Europe then and we made our most important stop at the Saint Emilion vineyards , and we also fell in love with the Galician Albariño (a bit about the wine, more about the region here).Our stock has been gradually disappearing with many lovely dinners, long conversations and even longer evenings or nights – our record was until 7 am! – A. and P., you know that I’m talking about you! 🙂

We’ve also stocked up in Czech Republic (you should try the enotourism in Moravia) and of course in our favourite Hungary,  Egerze and around Villany (you should try it even more!).

We didn’t have much experience with Polish wines, although we’ve recently had an opportunity to try the Adoria wine from Zachowice in the Hotel Copernicus in Toruń… However, we have made many promises to ourselves to change this situation and to become acquainted with Polish wines.

Therefore, when we had received an invitation to a vintage in Pałacu Mierzęcin we knew right away that it’s a perfect opportunity! 🙂 But, frankly speaking, we didn’t assume that we would enjoy the vintage as much as we did – us and Maks! Picking up grapes, the outdoor dinner, the autumn sun, the walks and the wine tasting – it all sounds like a perfect weekend, doesn’t it? 🙂

We got to Mierzęcin in lubuskie voivodeship in the late evening on a Friday – unfortunately, we had missed the official dinner inaugurating the vintage 🙁 The Saturday schedule was rather tough, it begun in the morning, at 10 am when the entire group went to the vineyard to start our toil – hundreds of kilograms of grapes to collect! Vintage was a novelty for us, so we didn’t know what to expect, we had no idea how it would work, and most importantly: would it be fun for Maks?

We walked to the vineyard from the Palace where we stayed – I’ll tell you more about it soon. A forest, a gorgeous park, a horse paddock. Cakes’ and ale’. And there our guide – the enologist Piotr Stopczyński introduced us to the vineyard and the varieties are cultivating…

It’s interesting that Pałac Mierzęcin is the only hotel or tourist site in Poland that owns a vineyard, a process plant and a wine cellar where wines develop and age. Moreover, their vineyard is one of the largest in Poland (over 6.5 hectare). They planted their first shrubs in 2004, and now they have approx. 27 thousand! They cultivate as many as 19 varieties, mostly white vines, such as Pinot Gris, Kerling, Riesling, Seyval Blanc, Gewurztraminer or Chardonnay and red vines, such as Pinot Noir, Rondo and Regent. We also had an opportunity to collect the varieties of Odessa Muscat, Sibera (ours!), Biona, Bianca or Merzling…

After we had gained a bit of knowledge we got to work! A bucket, shears and rubber gloves is a must-have set. Let’s get cracking! Our guide-enologist has divided us into groups of few people – every group was to collect a different variety of grapes. We got the Sibera that under the Polish weather conditions makes Riesling wine… Of course, Maks was the first one to start looking for grapes and he didn’t want to let go of his bucket at all (“It’s my bucket! Don’t take it away!”), and he was very helpful – picking up grapes, collecting them, moving things around, carrying buckets filled with collected grapes and transferring them into cases. He’s ready to get a job in a vineyard without a problem! 🙂

It turned out that picking up grapes is great fun, both for us and for Maks. I was afraid at first that he’ll get bored and start running around, and that he’ll be interested in everything but in collecting grapes. But, as it turned out, I had undervalued my “grown-up” son 🙂

When we had collected all the fair grapes, there was time for the Regent and Rondo varieties used to make red wine. We had a chance to try Rondo at dinner and in the evening, and we must say that it’s worth collecting because it really is a great wine. Well, it’s not just our opinion – both wines had received prizes in international competitions for winemakers (Rondo 2009 in ENOEXPO 2012, and Regent 2009 in Prešov in Slovakia in 2013). So, it’s an improvement and a revival of Polish winemaking.

When our grapes were gone, we decided to take a well-deserved rest and to have an even more deserved meal. Congrats to the organizers: lunch in the open air, in a vineyard – a dream come true! Additionally, thank you for ordering a suitable, sunny weather. We had a delicious goulash soup with boar meat, pork tenderloins wrapped in bacon, sea bass with vegetables and tasty baked little potatoes. Maks also found something to his liking – bow-tie pasta with tomato sauce and tuna – his favourite! 🙂 However, in the middle of lunch he decided to go to his buggy for a nap – he was so tired with the hard agriculture work 🙂

The dinner gave us an opportunity to try the local wines that we had managed to participate in making this year – i.e. the delicate, fruity Chardonnay, that we enjoyed the most and that we decided to take home with us as well! 🙂

Picking up grapes and dining in a vineyard were not the only attractions. Well-fed, we went to the process plant…

In the process plant we discovered the secrets of winemaking, we saw grapes transported into the press that presses the delicious, sour juice out of them. We were observing what happens with the fair grapes and the dark grapes. The fair grapes of all collected varieties, except for the Kerling variety, are being placed in the press together in order to produce coupage or the multivariate wine. As the enologist said, coupage is the biggest challenge: will it go well? Will it be tasty, or not? We’ll find out in the future…

We observed the hulling of dark grapes – the varieties of Regent (approx. 160 kg) and Rondo (approx. 280 kg). It’s interesting that the people working in the plant could easily distinguish one variety from another by their taste and appearance, while to us, amateurs, they seemed identical…

When the whole process is over (temperature lowering, clearing, parameter analysis, stirring, easting, fermentation) – I’m not going to describe the process in detail as I’m not a wine expert and I’m not going to pretend to be one – wines are waiting for us in a cellar in one of the oldest buildings in the entire complex. Perfect conditions for wine maturation and for drinking wine!

The Pałac Mierzęcin vineyard produces approximately 10,000 bottles per year, that are only sold on the premises so it’s worth to participate in a vintage or to go for a weekend relaxation because the Palace offers quite a few amusements (I’ll tell you about them soon!).

I must admit: I’ve never expected to enjoy the vintage so much. I must also say that when the GPS showed me at 6 pm on a Friday that we have 460 km ahead of us, I had some doubts! I’m really glad that I haven’t changed my mind because the road was quite fine (thank you, highways!), and the weekend was definitely worth it! 🙂

You won’t make it to this year’s vintage but remember about Pałac Mierzęcin for the next year’s vintage and I will definitely remind you about it! 🙂 And why is it also worth visiting on a regular weekend, especially for those who are closer than 460 km away? (Poznań!! I’m talking to you as well!!)… I promise to explain in the next couple of days!

PS. The Palace is also a great place for training or a conference, and a perfect spot for a wedding – in a fairy-tale garden – wow!

Practical info:

Pałac Mierzęcin

Facebook profile

Mierzęcin 1

66 -520 Dobiegniew

Lubuskie voivodeship

e-mail: recepcja@palacmierzecin.pl

tel. 95 71 31 500

You can read here about the “Vintage 2013” deal 🙂