Naboso Zore Red and Journeyman John Baker's I'm Keeping the Boots
The reason that Nadja and Andrej Miklusicak do what they do is pure and simple: “We make wine because we love wine.”
The owners and producers of Naboso quite literally get their hands dirty in every part of the winemaking process—whether that’s planting, foot treading, aging, selling, and everything in between. They run a small and independent winery in Slovakia’s mountainous Little Carpathians region that doubles as their home.
Nadja and Andrej take great care in their craft, and while they make natural wine, they’re adamant it must also be stable and delicious. As they say, “we have to like it, otherwise it will not leave our cellar.”
Similarly, it’s clear that Journeyman John Baker makes music out of a deep love and appreciation for the artform. He grew up on rock and soul classics—from Little Richard to Sam Cooke, The Beach Boys, The Ronettes, Carol King, and The Beatles, to name a few.
Language, storytelling, and visceral details are prominent in the music he’s drawn to and creates himself. John rhapsodizes about the vivid, emotional threads that influences like Jason Molina and Townes Van Zandt weave into their sonic tapestries.
John’s debut LP, I’m Keeping the Boots, honors the same storytelling tradition of the great folk and country songwriters. Within the 12 tracks are grounding details (carpet, pickled eggs) and nostalgic references (Boones Farm, Morgan Fairchild) that form an instant, familiar connection to a frayed, working class existence that’s filled with everyday beauty and pain.
John Baker
There’s a punchy simplicity consistent throughout I’m Keeping the Boots. This deliberate minimalism shows up in certain songs carried by a sole guitar and in lyrics that say plenty, without saying too much. In this way, he follows a trail blazed by another hero, Lightnin’ Hopkins—an artist who, in John’s words, “nobody has done more with less.”
This is also Naboso’s philosophy. They don’t add anything to their wine except the least amount of sulfur possible and only when it’s needed. They farm organically, harvest by hand, rely only on gravity to move the wine in the cellar, and nothing is filtered out. The wine is a product of the grapes, earth, and nurturing hands of the people who guide it through the process.
While assisting wineries in Austria, Nadja fell in love with Andrej and eventually made the journey to Svaty Jur in Slovakia to be with him and start their winery in 2018. Andrej takes the lead in the vineyard and the cellar and Nadja takes care of everything outside of it. Svaty Jur is largely a community of winemakers. Most households make wine, either professionally or just because.
Just a year after launching Naboso, they started Festival Naturalista in their garden at the winery, keeping with Slovakia’s culture of colorful festivals in charming, rural towns. The fair came together naturally (pun not intended) as a collaboration among winemaker, chef, and musician friends, and has grown steadily over the past six years.
Nadja and Andrej at Festival Naturalista
Naboso’s 2023 Zore Red is an Austrian-style blend of André (a cross between Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent) and Blaufränkisch. It’s a beautiful transparent ruby color. It smells like fresh soil after a rainfall, lots of red fruit, and slightly floral. It’s tart and linear with subtle savory green notes and an irony minerality. The carbonic maceration makes it pop, adding to the wine’s lighthearted, cheerful spirit.
With I’m Keeping the Boots, John says he really wanted to make a road album—and could die happy knowing “that someone was comfortable enough, and trusting enough, to give it a home and take it places.”
The album certainly reflects the ebbs and flows of a long drive. The opening track, “Stuck With You” comes in with lots of energy and attitude, like the initial jolt that comes with embarking on a journey. The boisterous outlaw country-style song juggles resentment and jubilation, elevated by Rachel Theriot’s vigorous and defiant backing vocals.
The second track, “All Year,” settles into a kind of emotional malaise. Time stretches and buckles under the weight of heartache, where a single day feels long enough to contain every season. John’s baritone sounds heavy here as he moves through the slog of heartbreak, but with an underlying self-awareness and almost perversely upbeat melody that keeps the song a head-bobber and a foot-tapper.
“I’m Keeping the Boots That You Gave Me” feels like the counterpart to “All Year.” Where “All Year” is about the stubbornness of time, “Boots” reflects its elusiveness in the wake of meeting someone new: In an instant, I knew I was hooked/ In ten seconds flat made a goner/ And by the end of the day I was cooked. The chorus plays with time some more, as it jumps forward to the relationship post-mortem.
The album’s intimate and contemplative moments add a delicate depth. Lyrics that grapple with the harsh duality of life’s choices and Theriot’s serene vocals on “Wild Rose Pass” hit in an all-too relatable yet oddly soothing way. “Wild Eyed Darlin’” captures the—at times fleeting—ease and passion of real love, ending with the sounds of pattering rain and chirping crickets that bleed into the aptly titled closing track, “The Last Words of the Cowboy.”
Naboso’s Zore Red and I’m Keeping the Boots feel cut from the same cloth: honest, unvarnished, and made with care by people who lead with their gut. Both are rooted in place yet meant to travel. It’s wine you can bring to a Brooklyn park picnic that tells the story of a couple in Slovakia. It’s songs built to ride shotgun on a long drive. There’s restraint, warmth, and a quiet confidence in each, an understanding that you don’t need excess to leave a mark.
