Whenever we travel to another country, I always try to fit in a visit to that countries wine region. In the Czech Republic, that region is known as Moravia, and it lies in the southeast of the country. Brno is the historical capital of Moravia. I hired a guide, Lenka, from Brno Day Trips, so we could drink wine and not worry about driving, which is a good thing based on how many wines ended up being available to taste!
As part of the tour we visited the “Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape”, a UNESCO World Heritage site that sits right on the border with Austria. The entire area is over 109 square miles, filled with landscaping based on English parks, complete with huge lakes and various small buildings, as well as a castle and a chateau. The first stop was at the stunning Lednice Castle, dating from the 14th century, and rebuilt in the Gothic Revival style in the mid 1800’s.
The Dukes of Liechtenstein transformed the vast property between the 17th and 20th centuries, making it into one huge private park. We toured a portion of the gardens around Lednice Castle. They had the largest greenhouse I think I’ve ever seen, at least from this time frame.
The entrances to the greenhouse are beautiful! I’m sure I’ve seen this in a movie at some point.
There is even a subterranean portion of the greenhouse, with these windows on the ground which allowed sunlight to reach the tops of huge palm trees that they would move underground in the winter. Apparently cost was not an issue for these people!
We ran into several interesting characters in the park. One guy had brought his rare chickens to the park to show them off. Our son Fletcher said the completely black chicken actually lays black eggs.
The view of Lednice Castle from the rear is just as impressive.
The Liechtensteins had a minaret built on the property, not for religious purposes but because they liked the architectural style. It is 203 feet high and serves as a viewing tower.
We then drove towards the other end of the huge property to visit the Valtice Chateau, which served as the home of the royal Liechtensteins from 1249 to 1939. This chateau, castle and and all of the land have an interesting WWII history.
The Liechtenstein family opposed the annexation of this territory into the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany, so the Nazis confiscated the property, and the family relocated to Vaduz in 1939, in what is now the small country of…you guessed it…Liechtenstein! After WWII ended, the family was classified as German so they could not get their property back. The family has made several legal attempts to have the property returned, to no avail. It has been the property of the Czech state since communism ended in 1989.
The purpose of our visit was to go down into the Wine Salon in the chateau’s cellar to taste some Czech wines.
The “Salon of Wines of the Czech Republic” is an annual wine competition, judged by the country’s sommeliers, to come up with the best 100 wines of the year. Each of those 100 wines is available to taste! Holy crap, what an experience!
The wines are in no particular order, sorted by varietals, and numbered 1 to 100. There are 85 whites, 10 reds, 2 sparkling, 2 roses and 1 liqueur. Where to start?? How about at number 1!
There is nobody there to assist you or pour for you. You do it all on your own. I’m not entirely sure how many wines I tried, but there was no way I was going to try all 100! Our guide pointed out a few of her favorites, but in the end we probably tried somewhere in the range of 30-40 wines. I think Kim stopped at 20 or so. Each wine had a full set of statistics to read over. Number 32 was a nice Pinot Gris, and only 14.13 euros!
That’s our guide Lenka looking for Kim’s next wine. I can’t imagine this concept in the United States. Every Bachelorette party would have the bus stop here and they’d have to be carried out!
Out of all of the wines we tasted, there were actually a few standouts. There were also a few that were blah. The sparkling wines were terrible…maybe stick to what you know? Regardless, this was an excellent visit, and I highly recommend it if you are traveling in the area.
The below map identifies the various wine regions in the country, and makes it clear the bulk of their wine comes from the southwest in Moravia, with a smattering of small regions in the Bohemian region near Prague.
After our intensive tasting, we visited the cute little town of Mikulov, which is surrounded by vineyards. If we were to stay in Moravia for a few days during a future trip, this would be the place, as it’s got a great small town feel to it, with plenty of hiking trails in the surrounding hills. We also saw quite a few people riding their bikes to the various tasting rooms in the area. It has almost an Italian feel to it.
We took a stroll around the Mikulov Chateau. While the original chateau was built in 1249, it was reconstructed to it’s present appearance after a fire in 1719. In 1945, during the retreat of the German army, the chateau was burned to the ground. It was reconstructed in 1950, so it’s a fairly new building.
The view from the top of the trail around the chateau is exceptional. The hill on the other side of the town is called Holy Hill, and has 14 pilgrimage churches on top. I wish we had the time to hike up, but more wine awaited!
Our last visit was to a small winery just outside of Mikulov. I forgot to take photos of the winery, but Kim shot one of this dog that became my best friend when I let him have a piece of charcuterie. Apparently dogs like meat!
Up next, we spend a day exploring an amazing set of caves in the Moravian countryside.