Slovakia has been producing wine for centuries. And even though it is not well known, Slovakian wine makers are acknowledged on many international wine contests as the masters of their craft. Here, in our “little big country”, we have six different wine regions, the most well-known among them is probably the Tokaj. Wine is produced basically everywhere within 50 km radius from Hungarian borders and on southern slopes of Small-Carpathian mountains in Western Slovakia.
The ESN EU Bratislava has organized in the middle of November an evening trip to a wine-making facility in Svätý Jur, a small town a few kilometres behind our capital city. The participation was “extremely high” – even if only 5 Erasmus students have taken part, the size of their wine spirit counted for at least 50 of them! Svätý Jur is a very old town, its history lasts for more than 800 years, and it is all surrounded by vineyards. Most of the families living there are producing wine either as their business or solely for private consumption. During our trip, we have visited wine-making manufactory Chowaniec & Krajčírovič, a small company held by two families, which has been producing wines for decades, but since the year of 2001 they have been incorporated.
After our arrival to Svätý Jur, we entered the main building of the wine manufactory. It was a big brick-walled hangar from the WW1 era with a huge cellar. Mr. Chowaniec, a co-owner of the manufactory, introduced us to the process of wine pressing and told us about different grape varieties grown in the region. His short lecture was followed by the visit of a cellar with large stainless steel tanks where white wine is made. Mr. Chowaniec explained to us the process of wine making, showed us bottling and labelling machines and later we chose seven kinds of wine for the long awaited wine tasting that had to take place soon. We went into another 300 years old wine cellar where red and rosé wine is getting its bouquet in oak barrels. In the beautiful atmosphere of wine cellar, we have tasted the previously chosen wines while eating Slovak cheeses and listening to the stories about wine cultivating. All of the tasted wines were excellent, some even better than the others (according to each one’s taste). At the end of the trip, we had an opportunity to visit the shop and buy some for wines.
On the way back to Bratislava, we all were happy and satisfied, slowly sipping on the wine of our choice.
Written by Tomáš Mesároš, section Webmaster