Racines Rebelles

July 2025
Kaja and I are sitting in her sunny vineyard tasting the latest vintage when she suddenly says, “Look, there’s an eagle.” She tells me her vineyards are full of wildlife— rabbits moving through the rows, deer passing by, bees everywhere. Wolfie, her ten-year-old husky, comes along most days. He’s either chasing rabbits or resting under a shady tree, completely at home.

Kaja Kov is originally from Estonia and worked as a sommelier before learning to make wine in Beechworth, Australia. She now farms 2.3 hectares of vines in Luxembourg, a small country bordered by Belgium, France and only a short stretch of Germany along the Mosel. Her parcels sit back from the river on inland slopes, spread across a few small villages. To visit them you drive between sites, each with its own feel and history.

What makes Kaja’s work stand out is that she manages all of it herself. Every task from pruning to harvest is done by hand. She enjoys working at this scale and has no plans to expand, as more land would mean bringing in extra help. Keeping it small allows her to stay close to the vines and maintain the style and rhythm she wants.

Some of her parcels were old and largely forgotten when she took them on. Reviving them has been slow but rewarding work, and the vineyards are now healthy and productive. The fruit coming off these slopes reflects the soils beneath them—limestone, gypsum and layers of history.

She is a true custodian of the land and her wines are a clear expression of this place and the way she farms. We’ve known each other for a couple of years now, and I’m excited to finally share her story in Australia.

In Kaja’s Own Words and without further ado, this is Racines Rebelles’ story:

The essence behind Racines Rebelles is mostly gathered by sommelier’s desire to become a winegrower without having any degree in viticulture nor a family in wine business. At the age of 23 while finishing Estonian Sommelier School in 2011 competitions never made any sense and learning from practice was the only way to continue. In 2020 the opportunity to create a micro winery arose with an offer to rent 0,8 ha of vineyards (25-40y) in two neighboring villages (Grevenmacher & Dreiborn) on the background slopes of Moselle Luxembourgeoise. In 2023 additional parcels were acquired on cooler sites (still uninteresting for most growers) in a wild garden called Erpeldange with gypsum soils. 

2,3ha (mostly old vines on steep slopes) planted with 8 varieties like Elbling (indigenous to Upper Mosel), Pinot Blanc, Auxerrois, Rivaner, Riesling, Pinot Gris, St. Laurent and Pinot Noir that are farmed by regenerative organic approach with cover cropping, phytotherapy (medicinal plants and herbs) & biodynamic preparations to create living ecosystems surrounded by orchards and bushes. Wild plants like stinging nettle, common horsetail & dandelion are infused into teas and sprayed along seaweed extract, propolis and essential oils to boost the natural defenses of the vines. Lacto ferments will be practiced in order to minimize the use of Sulfur to combat Oidium. Manual labor avoids soil getting compressed in order to establish fungal interactions between vines, trees and cover crops. The main goal remains on farming with common sense and as precise as possible to be able to minimize the intervention in the cellar for letting wines to show their pure mineral backbone from limestone & gypsum (ancient seabeds formed 200 million years ago during the Jurassic Period).

Grape selection during harvest is done by hand in the vineyards to separate botrytis affected grapes for being able to pick healthy bunches for longer macerations. Spontaneous fermentations are finished in larger old barrels (oak & acacia) and stainless steel vats. Besides, very limited quantity of cider from 70-120 years old apple orchards that have never seen any treatments against fungal diseases is produced with local varieties like Erbachhofer, Rambur, Triumph, Goldrenette and Bohnapel.