Vinǎrská Stodola

Czech

“In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce.”

W.B. Yeats

No early morning walk, just coffee nd porridge.

Today our walking will be done to tasting stations set up by Vinařstvi Znovín. Rather than the usual cellar door setup at a winery, Znovín has small ‘pop up’ tasting stations in its vineyards around Znojmo. You drive to a car park and then walk a kilometre or so to the tasting.

There are three tasting sites: Šobes vineyard in the Podyjí National Park, Peklo vineyard in Šatov, and the Old Vineyards vineyard route, Havraníky.

First stop: Šobes vineyard in the Podyjí National Park.

We follow the GPS, park the car, and head towards our destination. It seems an unlikely place for a vineyard, and it turns out there is no vineyard. There is nothing there. No vineyard, no tasting site.

A nice walk. On to the next place.

There are vineyards, but we get lost.

It is lunchtime, so we decide to abandon the mission.

“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Samuel Beckett

If the wine tasting adventure could be considered unsuccessful, lunch is a triumph.

Vinǎrská Stodola is in the village of Koníce, with a population of 2,500. It does not take card we we drive ten minutes to a bank for cash.

Vinǎrská Stodola is our perfect lunch spot—great beer, ridiculously cheap, large wholesome servings, and in the middle of nowhere.

I order a beer and Shell a wine. Shell orders the vepřové koleno, and Shell orders for me the vepřová žebírka.

We sit outside and look over the landscape. Europe is in a heat wave and now a drought. The gardens are dying; everything is brown and dusty.

This is climate change, and we are still not doing anything.

We head home and call it a day.

Brno tomorrow.

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.”

Ansell Adams