Last Sunday we ventured to western Moravia for a day trip to visit some of the wine country, see a couple of vineyards and enjoy the sunny, beautiful weather. It was a 2.5 hour drive heading east from Ceske Budejovice to get to the tiny town of Šatov. We were headed there, based on a tip from Dr. Gary Gardner (a colleague of Neil's in the Dept. of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota), to see the famed painted and carved cellars in one of the wineries. Let the adventures begin!
First, we headed to visit the winery near downtown. Each of the wineries here have their cellars dug into the soft limestone underneath the city. The cellars are lined with brick or stone for aging the wine, of course....as well as dining, and so forth.
So, the first winery we went to was....well you can read it (Znomin znojmo):
Come, let's go inside and explore the cellars! Enter through that little door on the left, please.....
We descended the steep, steep stairs (Mark holding on for dear life and using his cane).....down to the cellars.
We were the only ones in the lit cellar....hmmm....Neil had thoughtfully brought along our lunch (we were famished and it was delightfully cool in the cellar, so here were tables and benches.....let's eat! After some crackers, cheeses, fresh apples, plums, and water (we hadn't yet found the wines) we felt refreshed. And kept wandering about.
Aha...Mark spies a bottle! And the cellars were full of them!...
It was quite the place. Great Cabernets and lots of intriguing white wines, too.
We came back up from the cellars (you had to taste either upstairs in the restaurace (restaurant) or outside here under the grape arbor...
Feeling wonderfully re-energized after the long drive, we headed off to the next winery....now to see the famed painted cellars!
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