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Amber RoadWine Co.
Autumn vine rows on a grassy loess slope above a wide river valley in morning mist under an overcast sky

Amber Road Wine Co.

Wines from the other side of Europe.

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GdańskMoravian GateCarnuntumEmonaAquileiaAUSTRIACZECHIACROATIAHUNGARYPOLANDSLOVAKIASLOVENIA51°N50°N49°N48°N47°N46°N
The Amber Road · Baltic to Adriatic · 1st–2nd c. AD route

The route

An old road, followed south until it reaches a bottle.

For two thousand years amber travelled from the Baltic down the Vistula and the Oder, through the Moravian Gate to Carnuntum on the Danube, and on to the Adriatic at Aquileia. Vines grew along most of it. We follow the same road in the other direction, and bring back what we find.

The region

  • 900

    years of documented viticulture in Poland, from the Bull of Gniezno in 1136 to today.

  • 170,000 ha

    of vineyard across the seven countries on the road, from Poland's 1,000 to Hungary's 55,000.

  • 49°N

    the parallel Moravia shares with Champagne. Poland's vineyards sit between 49° and 53°.

Countries on the road

We begin in Poland. The road continues.

Open the atlas

Wines and producers

A short shelf, chosen slowly.

All wines
  • A bottle of white wine with a blank label on a worn wooden table.

    Nad Potokiem

    Winnica Silesian · Lower Silesia
    Riesling · granite · 2023

  • A bottle of amber wine with a blank label on a pale stone shelf.

    Glina

    Winnica Jakubów · Lower Silesia
    2022

  • A bottle of red wine with a blank label on a light concrete ledge.

    Jesień

    Moderna · Lower Silesia
    Pinot Noir · 2023

  • A bottle of red wine with a blank label on a pale wooden bench.

    Pod Klasztorem

    Winnica Srebrna Góra · Kraków Jura
    Pinot Noir · limestone, loess · 2022

  • A bottle of amber wine with a blank label on a rough oak table.

    Less

    Dom Bliskowice · Vistula Gorge
    Solaris · loess · 2023

  • A bottle of white sparkling wine with a blank label on a limestone ledge.

    Bałtyk Brut

    Winnica Turnau · West Pomerania
    Chardonnay, Pinot Noir · sand, loam · 2021

  • A bottle of red wine with a blank label on a rustic wooden table.

    Wawrzyniec

    Winnica Płochockich · Sandomierz
    St. Laurent · loess over limestone · 2022

Why Central Europe

Not a novelty. Not an alternative. A wine culture on its own terms.

Cistercians planted vines at Paradyż in 1250. Grünberg, now Zielona Góra, had 1,400 hectares and a sparkling-wine house in the 1860s. Moravia's Pálava hills are Jurassic limestone; Somló is a basalt plug. None of this is new. What is new is a generation of small estates farming these places seriously again.

We look for wines with a reason to taste the way they do: a slope, a soil, a cool season, a person. Then we draw the line back from the glass to the place, and let you follow it as far as you like.

A person in a dark work jacket stands among oak barrels and a steel tank in a softly lit cellar.

The founder

Nora Ellis, sommelier.

Nora spent twelve years on restaurant floors in San Francisco, the last five running the wine list. The wine that changed her mind was a Polish Riesling from granite, poured blind at a staff tasting, that nobody at the table could place. She looks for growers who farm their own vines and can tell you why their wine tastes the way it does.

For the trade

Portfolio book, tech sheets, samples.

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Stories

From the journal

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