Our vineyard

Some places have a history that begins long before the first vine is planted. Before the name Talaska appeared on our bottles, generations had come and gone beside the Dunajec. Settlements grew, strongholds rose on the hills, and people learnt to live by the rhythm of the river, the land and the changing seasons.

In the fourteenth century, during the reign of Casimir the Great, the walls of Melsztyn Castle began to rise above the valley in southern Poland. Historical records of nearby Charzewice mention a vineyard as early as 1364. Vines are therefore more than a recent arrival here: they belong to a much older story of this landscape.

We do not know the names of everyone who worked these slopes. They left behind fragments of records, places and questions. What were their harvests like? Who drank their wine? How did they feel when they opened a vessel after months of waiting? Looking across the valley today, it is easy to think of those who watched the same river before us.

The valley’s history also touches that of the Benedictines, who once owned nearby villages. That connection invites the imagination into an earlier world: cool cellars, wooden vessels and work that could not be hurried.

Imagine a cool morning above the Dunajec. Mist slowly lifts from the slopes as the light reveals the outlines of the hills. In our story, we step into a stone cellar, where a monk bends over the wine. A vessel is set down, a quiet footstep follows, cloth rustles. His hands move with calm familiarity.

This imagined scene offers a sense of an older rhythm of work. Fruit had to ripen; wine needed time. In that patience we recognise something familiar today: the care of someone tending what another season has entrusted to them.

This is how the valley stirs the imagination. The castle ruins, the bend in the river and the sunlit slopes prompt questions about the lives lived here before ours. History leaves traces; storytelling gives us time to linger over them.

While exploring the history of the area, the founders of Talaska Vineyard also came across accounts of a vineyard here in the fifteenth century. That discovery, described on the vineyard’s sign today, gave their plans another meaning: planting their own vines became a way of reconnecting with the region’s traditions.

Further traces lead to an eighteenth-century vineyard associated with Maciej Lanckoroński on the slopes below Melsztyn Castle. That earlier vineyard and today’s Talaska belong to different chapters of this landscape’s history. What connects them is a valley where people have once again recognised the potential to make wine.

Not every story runs unbroken. The destruction of the castle, the changes of successive eras and the disappearance of earlier vineyards gradually obscured the area’s winemaking past. The landscape changed where people had once worked. Knowledge passed away with generations, leaving written records as reminders of the old vineyards.

We can imagine a hillside where paths slowly become overgrown and seasons pass without a harvest. There is a quietness in that interrupted story — and room for another chapter. The return of the vine lets us see this land afresh, curious about its past and mindful of what we are creating for the future.

Talaska Vineyard was founded in 2020, born of a love of nature, a fascination with wine and the dream of making our own. Those words appear on the sign standing in our vineyard today. Behind them lies something larger: a decision to commit our time, our work and our family’s plans to this place.

For Natalia and Tomasz, it was the start of learning about the soil, the grape varieties and each passing season. The journey from preparation and planting to ripe fruit cannot be shortened. Vines need time to grow. Weather must be watched, and decisions made whose results will only become clear months later.

The family character of the vineyard is found in everyday life: in shared decisions, in work carried through the seasons, and in waiting for the right moment to harvest. It is there in the joy of finally pouring a glass of our own wine and sharing it with someone close.

Our first wines from the 2024 vintage made that work tangible. Each bottle held the fruit of a particular harvest, along with several years of patience and experience. Our family story could now travel further, to the tables of the people opening our wine.

Today, the story continues in the cellar, where Tomasz arranges his bottles. Time, care and attention still matter. Wine is made by people who return to their work day after day.

When we think back to the imagined winemaker of the past, it is the hands that draw our attention. There, working over a vessel. Here, carefully placing another bottle on a shelf. That simple gesture can connect two distant scenes and remind us how much human work goes into wine.

Family amongst the vines, preparations for harvest, ordinary moments and the pleasure of a finished wine: these make up our daily life. Talaska Vineyard’s story is shaped by people who chose to make this place part of their lives and to welcome others into it.

We invite you to discover our vineyard in Poland and meet the family writing the next chapter of this valley’s story.