"Labels put obstacles in the way of winemakers," says Kuchyň's sommelier Lukáš Mohorko
Czech food, beer, and Prague in the palm of your hand
What brought you to wine?
I'm lucky, or maybe unlucky, in that I like to experience through flavours. And wine offers a really complex experience. I've always been close to it, but the biggest trigger was Stockholm, where I lived around 2020, and where my expat friends and I regularly visited the wine bar Savant. I think that's when and where the turning point came.
What was the rest of it like?
I returned to the Czech Republic and did some part-time catering while studying art history. Like a lot of people of my generation, I started at McDonalds in high school because it was important for me to be able to function independently. Later on, I focused on coffee. In Prague I worked as a roaster at Dos Mundos coffee shop and in Stockholm I was in charge of coffee care in a chain of companies. Later on, a friend and I started a roastery called Rusty Nails and we still have it today.
After a short stay in Prague, I went to Paris, where a long-time friend of mine lived and ran a café. I arrived there and he said he had had enough after twelve years and handed me the keys to his apartment and café to take over. I went ahead and worked at the café during the week and went to Jura on weekends: wine region in eastern France). In 2022, I also got to harvest wine there and was able to participate in the production of the entire vintage.
Click, three years, and you're head sommelier at Kuchyň. What brought you here?
I kind of burnt out in gastronomy, it stopped making sense to me. So I thought I'd try what it's like in corporate. I went through several rounds of the selection process and almost took the job. But when I thought about it, I couldn't imagine sitting in an office from Monday to Friday. And there was an ad at Kuchyň at the time for a sommelier. My good friend Matěj Pína was already working there at the time, so he introduced me to the general manager, Tomáš Hrušovský. Instead of a ten-minute interview, Tomáš and I talked for an hour and a half about our visions and it just "clicked".
Wine for all and a healthy vineyard
What does your position entail?
In a restaurant of this size, a certain hierarchy is a necessity, and although I don't like to use that term, I hold the position of head sommelier. My job is to cultivate the space and the wine menu. Although the kitchen is a business that originated more from the Czech pub culture, the history of wine in our country is rich and this drink belongs to our establishment. Tomas is a visionary, he sees two years ahead and knows what he wants. He has decided to push the service further and the wine offer goes hand in hand with it.
My job also includes educating the staff about wine, convening joint tastings and trips to visit winemakers, but also putting together a wine list that makes sense conceptually for a Czech company while also offering a selection of foreign wines. We stick to the Old World: wines from traditional wine-growing countries in Europe), we have not yet stepped outside of it.
How has the wine list changed with your arrival?
I feel that in the first phase, guests were simply offered "reds and whites". Not that the wine wasn't of good quality, but the range was simply not wide. In terms of numbers, the range has expanded by some seventy items in the last year.
In terms of structure, Tomas gave me a completely free hand, for which I am glad. We try to accommodate all guests, although of course this is not 100% possible. Half of the list is made up of wines of a more conservative nature, focused on varietality, i.e. the expression of one variety. The other half is, shall we say, more experiential, defining the terroir, i.e. the area where the winemaker grows the vines.
In terms of composition, currently 65% of the white wines come from the Czech Republic and Moravia, with reds around 50%. The common denominator of all the bottles on the list is what I have given the working title healthy vineyard. We work directly with the winemakers, we know how they grow the vines and what access they have to the vineyard and the land. We know that they are trying to create the best product possible without having to have any labels or certifications. This is because these often put obstacles in the way of winemakers. The main thing for us is the overall approach and cultivation without unnecessary spraying and artificial fertilisation.
"Natural" and "organic" are both dirty words to many people. Moreover, from a winemaking or sommelier's point of view, there is no such thing as 'natural wine'. We can speak of wine as biodynamic, this refers, for example, to the maximum amount of chemicals contained: for example, sulphur dioxide).
A good example is Milan Nestarec, who likes to talk about the fact that labelling annoys him. In short, he tries to use his best judgement to ensure that the wine and the vineyard are healthy.
Czech cuisine and wine
Back to Kuchyň. I have a feeling that most people still picture a beer next a plate of sirloin. But you're trying to convince us otherwise. How do you pair wines with Czech sauces?
For starters, I should mention that the evolution of wine goes hand in hand with the evolution of cuisine in our business. Our chef Marek Janouch and his team are constantly moving forward gastronomically. And for me, that makes it easier and easier to choose a wine to go with a meal like this. I have been given the space to focus on wine pairing and I think a lot about seasonality, ingredients and the concept of our feasts.
Can you fill us in a little on the ideation process?
The first stage is to sketch out the ingredients. I'll learn from the kitchen what ingredients will make up the dishes on the menu: Kuchyň regularly hosts "feasts" - a multi-course menu with the option of wine pairings.). Then the brainstorming begins. However, I don't like to take shortcuts, so I don't limit myself to the wines we already have in stock and in our fridges, but try to connect with suppliers or winemakers to find new wines to pair with the dishes. Then my colleagues and I test the serving and try different wines with each course. I'm gradually narrowing down the selection and fine-tuning the details.
Are there any Czech dishes that you find it harder to pair wine with?
The hardest part is showing the guest that they can have wine with a classic Czech sauce. Once I manage to convince him, I feel a lot of confidence on his part. My favourite example is pairing classic schnitzels with champagne.
Most Czech food is heavy, so many people think that heavy red wines are a necessary accompaniment. I, on the other hand, try to lighten the dish with wine, to add freshness and acidity to the dish. This means that I go the way of contrast, complement, surprise, completeness. After all, even with sirloin steak, sour cranberries are traditionally served.
In the same way, I believe that desserts do not need to be accompanied by sweet dessert wines. On the contrary, a dessert with "bubbles" is a great combination. We offer our guests Czech sparkling wines or Champagne, after all our restaurant is located in a palace.
In May, Kuchyň hosts a small wine festival called Wine to the Castle. What all needs to be arranged for such an event?
The first and crucial step was to convince the general manager, to explain to him that such an event makes sense for our place. Already at the interview I mentioned that I could imagine something like this in Kuchyň, Tomáš and I set a horizon of two years - and it took seven months. I think the turning point was one of his trips to Moravia, where he got to know our winemakers better.
What happened then?
The second step was to approach winemakers and try to cover the whole gamut - from the more conservative wines to the absolute wilderness. Probably the most challenging part was fine-tuning the dates, because winemakers are busy people, they're busy in the vineyard and they go to a lot of wine festivals. We have winemakers from Bohemia and Moravia, but also representatives from abroad, including Slovakia, of course. In addition, we cooperate with the Marie B restaurant and their wine shop Vin de Marie, from where we also take some of the wines into our business. And then there are practical matters such as preparing the staff, ordering wines, glasses, ice...
How will the festival run?
For us, the guest's contact with the winemaker is important. We want people to see that wine is not just a pretty vignette, but that it's also a big job that's worth every bottle. That's why it will be an event filled with humility towards the wine craft.
After a discussion with my colleagues in marketing, we realised that there are plenty of festivals organised in the form of unguided tastings, and we thought we would give it some form. Ambiente has the added value of offering guests the opportunity to educate themselves through the experience if they want to, in addition to good food and drink.
And so we decided to pair it up in the form of a game. And because for me the most annoying thing about wine is that it gets you drunk, we will offer guests canapés from our chefs and cooks at Marie B to pair with each wine. Visitors will receive a tasting card with a clue telling them which sandwich to have with which type of wine. It won't say anything more specific, though, because a hundred people, a hundred tastes.
Youtube and books
Where do you like to find inspiration and new knowledge?
YouTube is a rich source, there are a lot of lectures by winemakers and oenologists. There are also masterclasses and wine festivals are a good source of information. I recently went to several of them in Italy, and that gave me an insight into the wine production of the whole country. In addition, I love to read, including books about wine. But the most valuable, of course, are the meetings with winemakers directly at their vineyards, that gives me the absolute most.
Where do you like to travel to for wine, either for work or on your own?
My heartland is the aforementioned Jura wine region. I worked in Arbois for a while and I love their wines, my favourite variety is Ploussard. But I also highly recommend Burgundy - and of course South Moravia, where it's good to combine vineyard visits and cycling trips, as cycling is another hobby of mine. You can pack your bags, ride through Moravia, stay with friends, chat with them over a glass of wine, and if you have time, you can ride from there to Burgenland in Austria, or even Slovenia. I have roots there, by the way.
What would you be if you weren't a sommelier?
I am increasingly attracted to the idea of the hard work in the vineyard that I experienced in France. I also write poetry quite extensively, so maybe one day it won't just be for my bedside drawer.
