Czech Republic wine tourism, bouncing back after the end of Communist rule, faces new threat from climate change
- The Czech wine industry was decimated during Communist rule, but has since been making a slow and steady comeback, with a healthy tourism scene
- Known mostly for their cool-climate whites and ice wines, Czech winemakers face new challenges from global warming
From a wooden watchtower in the small town of Vrbovec, I look out over Moravia, the Czech Republic’s main wine-growing region. I see scribbled rows of vines and a smattering of red-roofed cellars – but there is no sign of the grape goat, goddess of Vrbovec’s wine harvest.
“You won’t see the billy goat,” Radka Pavlíková says, as if the animal is real. “He goes inside for a rest every winter, while the female goat stays outside.”
Having finished a 5km (3.1 mile) tourist trail around the town with Pavlíková, we sit at a long table in the Písařův sklep wine cellar with Veronika Písařová, who pours me a glass of riesling.
Both women are members of the Fellowship of the Grape Goat, which was established in 2004 and organises events and tours aimed at keeping the legend alive.
Goats have been part of European folklore stretching back to at least the Neolithic period (approx. 5500BC), country folk believing that the animals were the embodiment of harvest gods and ritually slaughtering them to encourage the spirit to be reborn the following spring.
