In 1983, after we were married, we started to help the Záruba family with the production of their wine. Up until 1991 we helped our parents to sell their wine, helped in the cellar and even in the vineyards. During this period we gained useful experience that would later allow us to become to be independent and establish our own business.
In 1991 we started our own business. We produced wine in the basement cellar of our house. We started our own life of wine with our first work of art – the wine variety: Rhein Riesling.
In 1994 we moved our production from the basement of our house to Pezinok in 1994. There we rented a production hall from our late uncle, Štefan Záruba, who had regained his property through restitution. We produced our wine here for 4 years.
In 1995 our Moravian Muscat won the best young wine award at the Vinoforum wine competition in Pezinok. Since we had to bring our wine to the reception held after the competition, we had to design a label for our wine. Our first label was designed by the graphic artist Oliver Solga. Later we met Marián Komáček, who was responsible for the organization of the International Symposium of Graphics. At this event a bulletin of graphic art was launched and from this we chose a graphic of Karol Félix for our label. He gave us his approval to use it as the label for our wines and from that moment on we used graphic designs by Slovak artists for the next 10 years.
In 1997 we bought a building from a cooperative in Šenkvice. The building underwent reconstruction and became the headquarters of our company.
In many respects 1998 was a breakthough year for us. We began to use new techniques in the production of our wine, such as controlled fermentation, vinification and aging of wines in oak barrels. We have been very fortunate that our uncle Peter Záruba has constantly educated us, he knew the direction that the developments in wine production were taking and he was familiar with new technologies coming from abroad. During that time the production philosophy was changing, our ambition was to produce only high quality wines. In order to achieve this goal, we needed different cellars and storehouses.
The next crucial step in our development was the purchase of an estate in Svätý Martin, where our largest vineyard, the Suchý vrch of 28 hectares is situated. The planting of the vineyard started in 2000, which turned out to be a very hard year for wine producers. Only 75 % of the vines took root, the rest had to be replanted.
For the new technology and to ensure we had the capital loans were necessary. Our EU funded projects involved the rebuilding of the company premises, planting of vineyards and the provision of new technology for wine production. As we needed to change our production and storage facilities, we developed a project brief with the architects Sadecky and Piter. For the implementation of the project we collaborated with the architect Marcinka, who developed the study for the presentational and storage spaces.
2006 and 2008 were challenging due to the building works. The rebuilding of the production, storage, administrative and presentational spaces lasted from 13th of March 2006 to 21st of March 2008. On the 21st of March 2008 we witnessed the final ceremonial approval of the new spaces at the Pekné víno s rozhľadom (Nice wine with a view). The highlight of it all was the opening of the 21 metre high watchtower with a panoramic view of the Small Carpathian Mountains. The day before this event our company was ceremonially sanctified.
In 2010 our buildings were recognised with a nomination for an ARCH award. The combination of the architectural elements and the graphic designs of the wine collections was also recognised at the VINUM SUPERBUM wine exhibition. We were awarded the best ῝Corporate Identity” prize by the Association of Slovak Architects.
In 2011, for the first time, we received the ῝Winery of the year” award from the Association of Slovak Winemakers and Vine-growers.
In 2012 we repeated our success and again were presented with the ῝Winery of the year” award by the Association of Slovak Winemakers and Vine-growers and the Vinotéka Magazine.
In 2016 our new tasting room and archive were finished, the end of our building activity. Both areas were originally built by the Nupod cooperative in 1942.
