Beer has long been associated with the Czech Republic. But wine is also a focus here, with an industry whose history dates back centuries. Why isn’t it better known?
In short, the years that the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia spent behind the Iron Curtain were devastating to its wine industry. Things have changed since the early 1990s, though, and ever since, the nation’s wine output has grown increasingly impressive—in both quality and quantity.
Here’s a beginner’s dive into the Czech wine landscape and why it deserves your attention.
Geography
The Czech Republic is a hilly landlocked country, classified as a humid continental climate zone, relatively similar to New York’s Finger Lakes region. Typically, Czech summers are warm and somewhat rainy, while winters are cold and usually involve some snow. Though it has no seas or oceans, the country does have a number of lakes and rivers, most notably the Vltava.
Mojmír Baroň, a viticulture professor at Mendel University in Brno, explains that “soil conditions on Czech territory are very diverse—from volcanic in Bohemia in the west to Moravia in the east with tuff and sandstone.” Traditional limestone can also be found, as well as loess loam with clay, especially in Moravia.
Limestone deposits can also be found in the Palava region, a protected landscape area in the South Moravia region on the Austrian border. The limestone lends many wines from this zone a special “salty and mineral” essence that delivers a distinctive flavor, says winemaker Dominika Černohorská, owner of the vineyard Plener in Pavlov.
As with many wine regions around the world, climate change has weighed heavily on Czech viticulture and winemaking in recent years. The increasing incidence of drought presents challenges to winemakers, especially those working with young vines. But even older vines are affected, often leading to smaller harvests.
Also problematic are increasing average temperatures over the past decade, which have resulted in higher levels of sugar in grapes used for wine. The warming climate “poses new challenges for the field of viticulture and wine-growing that must be faced,” reads a 2021 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Sustainability. This is especially true for the cold-climate white grapes that have long been grown in the country’s main wine-growing regions.
However, these changes may have a silver lining: Another study, published last summer in Heliyon, concludes that this is “likely to lead to an increase in growing areas, especially in [favor] of vine varieties suitable for the production of red or rosé wines.”
History
Andrea Kotašková, a Czech wine expert and operator of Wine Tours in Czech, points out that for centuries, Prague “was actually famed for being a wine city throughout Europe—and to this day, it is one of the rare capital cities on the Bohemia, that can boast its own vineyards.”
In fact, the whole of what’s now the Czech Republic had a well-renowned, vibrant wine industry. Historically known as Bohemia, it became part of the Holy Roman Empire in the year 1001.
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