Wine harvest festivals

Vinobraní is the name given to the traditional autumnal wine harvest festivals of the Czech lands, and the 2009 season is in full swing.

A traditional vinobraní in a small vineyard sees family members and friends travel from all ends of the country to help bring in the year's grapes and prepare the new wine. A small house or large weekend cottage near the vineyard is the focus of activity, and there seems to be as much or more eating, drinking, singing and laughing as there is fruitpicking or wine making, as well as catching up and sharing burčák with neighbours and friends not seen since the same time last year.

But there are also public vinobraní festivals that anyone can go along to and the biggest and best are held in South Moravia, the country's main wine growing region. Znojmo and Mikulov both had their festivals on the weekend of the 11th and 12th, Mělník and Bzenec were this weekend just gone and Velké Pavlovice's vinobraní was way back at the beginning of the month. But the season being in full swing means it's not over yet. On the 3rd of October the Valtice vinobraní will take place at the UNESCO-listed chateau and coming up on the 25th and 26th of September will be the Litoměřice vinobraní and the Valtice burčák festival.

Despite being little known abroad, burčák is a favourite and much anticipated drink in the Czech lands. A lightly alcoholic drink made from partially fermented white grape juice, burčák is only available for a short time each year and in South Moravia, they sometimes say there are four seasons; winter, spring, summer and burčák.

Good burčák should be golden and slightly cloudy and is best a few days after the beginning of the fermentation process. It's also possible to make burčák from red grapes, but because of the way red wine is left to steep and colour, it's difficult to find outside the wine growing regions themselves.

They say that burčák cleanses the blood and that to do its job properly, you need to consume as much burčák as you have blood. And at every vinobraní plenty of people gleefully set about doing just that, because it's sweet and easy to drink in great quantities. But take it easy the first time. Burčák contains living yeast cultures that continue to work in your body when consumed, and drinking too much too quickly might see you cleansing more than just your bloodstream.

That said, it's a natural product high in vitamin B, and when Mrs. Oddsocks was at the doctor last week, she was told “Burčák is healthy, drink as much as you like”.

Na zdraví!

Burčák, mushrooms and falling leaves

By this time of year, keen observers will notice two things have appeared in great quantities in the Czech Republic. One is the cloudy, bottled liquid for sale at markets and streetside stalls and the other is the wicker baskets that people seem to have decided to carry all at once.

The cloudy liquid is Burčák, the still fermenting young wine express delivered from the vineyards of South Moravia, and the baskets are for mushrooms.

Collecting mushrooms from the forest is such a popular pastime among Czechs that they are considered the world leaders. According to the Czech Agricultural University's 2006 report on the state of forests and forest economies, 70% of Czechs go mushrooming at least once a year and each household collects on average more than 8kg of mushrooms in a season.

For short term visitors to the country, keep an eye out for mushrooms on sale at street markets or as special offers on restaurant menus. They're a local delicacy as much as anything else you might like to try during your stay, and anything on sale publicly like this will be good. Some of the varieties are extremely poisonous, so if you do stumble across and decide to pick wild mushrooms by yourself, please, please, please ask somebody knowledgable to check them for you before you even think about going anywhere near the kitchen.

The muchomurka variety is one to be especially careful with. The pink muchomurka is an edible mushroom, but it's very, very similar in appearance to the red muchomurka, which is a strong psychotrope and the white, tiger and green muchomurky which are among the deadliest mushrooms in the world. It might sound simple enough just to eat the pink ones, but the colours of the mushrooms do not always correspond to their names and especially the tiger muchomurka can be tricky to distinguish from the edible pink variety.

For anyone who is around the country a bit longer, mushrooming is an activity you can probably take part in, even if you don't realise it. Keen mushroomers guard their favourite locations carefully, so nobody is going to tell you where to go, but if you let it be known that you can be ready early on the morning after a decent rain, you'll probably find that most of your Czech friends will be happy to take you along.

On a vow of secrecy of course.

Babi Leto

The weather for most of September so far has been miserable. This weekend, though, an early taste of Babi Leto arrived.

Babi Leto means something like ‘Grannies’ summer’, and is so named because of the long, white strands of spiderwebby stuff that float through the air at this time of year. They might look like spiderwebs to some, but to the people who make up nicknames they apparently look like Grandmothers’ hair. In any case it's the year's last gasp of summery weather before the leaves drop, the winds blow up and people start dusting off their skis and skates.

Autumn’s my favourite season here; the days are still long, the crowds of summer tourists have gone home, things like the theatre, the jazz club and the cultural events at the university have all started up again. On sunny days people are out strolling, walking their dogs, collecting chestnuts in the park, hunting mushrooms in the forest and just enjoying the crisp, clear sunshiney days.

I think I’ll go for a bike ride through the park before I have to start work. Want to come along…?