The event was held under the auspices of Mr. Pavel Fischer, ambassador of the Czech republic in France, and permanent representive of the Czech republic to the OECD, Mr. Karel Dyba, this time marked by the czech presidency of the EU Council.

This year the competition „Spring festival 2009″ was held coincidentally at the time of regular session of the International organization of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine – OIV. The rising importance of the competition is signalized by repeated visit of the wine committee DG AGRI of the European Commission representant, Mr. Bernard Lefévre.

The jury that judged, for the 6th time already, the best czech and moravian wines, assembled on the 18th march 2009 and was composed of: Mr. Martin Pastyřík, president of the Association of Sommeliers of the Czech republic, Mr. Libor Nazarčuk, vice-president for the region Morava, triple champion of the Czech republic and Slovakia. For the french side, Mr. Jean-Michel Deluc, president of the jury, master sommelier, president of the Academy of Wines and chief-sommelier of Chateauonline, the biggest internet shop with wines in Europe, Geroges Lepré, consultant, master sommelier, Partick Masbatin, innkeeper (restaurant L’Aiguière, Paris), master sommelier, and Georges Bertet, sommelier, journalist, member of Association of sommeliers Paris and editor of the website sommelier-paris.org.

From the 48 wines that passed to the final in Paris, the following succeeded in the competition:

The french experts relished the rising quality of the wines and generally they were surprised by the prices for which the quality wine can be acquired in the Czech republic. Jean-Michel Deluc claimed the high increase of the quality of the red wines, while the white ones are top quality and the sweet wine literally world quality. Partick Masbatin, owner of the renowned paris restaurant l’Aiguiere, expressed his wish to put some of the wines to his wine-list, he named for example the champion from Znovin and cuvée Bokovka of Marcinčák.

Even our sommeliers had the occasion to visit this restaurant. Martin Pastyřík said about the visit: „again we could have made sure of the fact we are able to make great dish even in our place, the perfect work with the choice of wines to each course was remarkable. That the point we should make better. We have a varied assortment of wines of national production and even the possibility to work with them in the same way. That’s  where I see our big reserves.” Libor Nazarčuk had the same meaning as his french colleagues. He also said: „In the quality restaurants here they offer about 95% wines from France, the rest comes from abroad. It is seen that they look for something special to complete their national assortment. That might be the way for our wine makers to get into the offer of the french top restaurants. I would propose the same thing to our restaurants, to put into their wine-lists the same high percentage of wines of the national production, and complete it with the foreign production.” He also was, together with Pastyřík, interested by the fact that was unnecassary to order entire bottles, but that another wine was proposed to every course, and was served in suitable quantity.„The work with wine served in lesser quantity offers the possibility to complete every dish with a different wine, which is the basic condition to get ideal harmony between the wine and the dish. The only question is to learn how many bottles the restaurant may open in order to sell them. This way of serving the wine makes the possibilities of offer much wider and the culinary experience becomes much more varied. In addition the customer may discover more wines and more possibilities of their combinations with the dishes.”

All the wines will soon be available not only by the wine makers but also in the Moravian bank of wines.

Before the competition a presentation of the wines of our wine makers and of the Project Austerlitz (with accent to the bicentenary of the battle of Znaim prepared for july) was held in the Paris siege of the OECD, with participation of about 60 memebers of the diplomatic corps of representatives of the member countries to the OECD. The event culminated in the evening of the 18th march in the Czech center in Paris with a common presenation of the wines, project Znaim 2009 (see austerlitz.org/en) and presentation of the Czech republic „Czech stars” for the professional and lay public.

The biggest success so fat of the Spring festival, Project Austerlitz and Association of sommeliers of the Czech republic was the nomination of the straw wine from Vinařství Marcinčák to the anniversary Gala evening of the association of sommliers of France, where it was served as chosen wine from 20 best world wines during the festive dinner.

The Spring festival event serves for propagation of the Czech republic, region of Southern Moravia, production of our wine makers who get the information about the opinions of the foreign experts and about the possibilites to enter the top gastronomy.