Celebrating the heritage of winemaking
The Wenzel family, live in the centuries-old walls of the beautiful baroque vineyard house named ŠTOK, once the centre of a vineyard estate. Surrounded by the Ritoznoj vineyards we have become linked with wine making in a unique way. Our designer, hand-crafted products have been created from the estate’s old wine barrels and bottles. Staves and other parts of the discarded barrels, which are given a unique colour and texture from the wine they’ve contained for many decades, come to life again as lights, furniture, utensils or fashion accessories. The noble patina of time, top design and attentive crafting combined with a great deal of love, guarantees their uniqueness, quality, and warmth.
The story of each hand-crafted product begins with the search and selection of old barrels. The type and age of the wood, the varieties of wines that were stored in them, the wine cellars in which they matured, and even the rooms in which they were discarded, give their own special character to each barrel. We get our inspiration from this. Once the barrel is selected we dismantle and carefully process each component. We do not discard anything - everything gets a new life. We perform most of the work manually. We use purely natural materials for cleaning and protecting the wood to make its unique colour and structure glow. Cleansed, whetted and oiled staves become ceiling lights or floor lamps, wine bottle stands, tasting tables, cold meat boards with cutlery, glasses, fashion accessories or barrel ovens with grill. Metal rings of barrels and old wine bottles hidden in wicker flasks, come to life again as lights and lamps.
Our wide range of products are all environmentally friendly. Lights and lamps, furniture, gourmet products and fashion accessories, combine top design, love for viticulture, tradition, and handwork. Each product, distinguished by the noble patina of years gone by, is unique.
A new life for barrels
Recycling meets design
Tradition that binds
Our baroque vineyard home, where in the past the Counts of Windisch-Gräetz, one of the noblest Slovene families of the Habsburg Monarchy, engaged in their cellar trade, was for centuries known as the Štok among the locals, which means a storeyed house. Storeyed houses were rare, particularly in the Slovenian countryside in the seventeenth century. Štok’s wine cellar, one of the very few vaulted cellars of its size in Styria, was home to the excellent noble wine the Counts of Windish-Gräetzs were famous for. At the entrance of the cellar sits a beam with 1690 carved into it. With care and honouring its traditional past we have renovated and brought the cellar back to life. Gourmets and lovers of good wine will soon be able to enjoy wine tastings of selected local wines, accompanied by culinary specialties from local produce, all inspired by the centuries-old stories of the Štok estate.
PHONE
+386 40 97 34 01
ADDRESS
Aleš Wenzel, Ritoznoj 9
2310 Slovenska Bistrica, Slovenia
