Imbibe 75 Person to Watch: Mateusz Jania

Krzyzowice, Poland

More than 10 years ago, when Mateusz Jania planted a dozen or so grapevines outside his parents’ house, few shared his vision for Polish viticulture. “People who heard my dream of owning a vineyard shook their heads in disbelief and suggested I might try growing bananas instead,” he says. “The idea seemed so far-fetched.”

Jania—a recipient of a 2025 Slow Food Negroni Week educational scholarship—now makes wine at Winnica Jania, a winery in Krzyz˙owice, Poland, approximately 160 miles northwest of Kraków. At Winnica Jania, he cultivates Vitis vinifera such as Pinot Noir and makes white and skin-contact wines using PIWI grapes, or fungus-resistant crossings bred in the 20^th century.

The latter are suited to his climate and commitment to minimal-intervention viticulture, but he occasionally faces skeptics. He’s unbothered; people who don’t believe PIWI grapes can produce world-class wines are usually “old-school winemakers, or from regions with centuries-old appellations untouched by war,” he says. Besides, Jania sees a throughline between modern hybrids and field blends, and the mixed plots of grapes tended to by farmers in the Polish countryside generations ago.

“We often pick PIWI and Vitis grapes at the same time and create a historical blend at the juice-pressing stage,” he says. “For us, it’s very important to preserve tradition.” As domestic and global wine cultures evolve, he’s optimistic about bringing sustainably produced, distinctly Polish wines to homegrown and far-flung audiences. “We are a creative and ambitious group of enthusiasts who know what we are doing—and we do it very well.”

Click here to read more about some of 2026’s other Imbibe 75 People and Places to Watch.