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Wine / Spirits Education in Valtice
A South Moravian wine town on the Austrian border, set in the Lednice-Valtice UNESCO cultural landscape of chateaux, avenues and vineyards. Its Baroque chateau holds the National Wine Salon, and the surrounding Mikulov sub-region grows the aromatic whites Moravia is known for.
Why here
South Moravia is the heart of Czech wine, and Valtice is its schoolroom. The town sits in the Lednice-Valtice cultural landscape, a UNESCO site of chateaux, avenues and vineyards on the Austrian border, where limestone slopes below the Palava hills grow the aromatic whites the region is known for, Veltlinske zelene, Ryzlink and the local Palava among them. The Baroque Valtice Chateau holds the National Wine Salon, a permanent tasting exposition of the hundred best Czech wines picked each year by national competition, so you can taste the country's benchmark bottles side by side in one cellar. Add a tasting in the chateau's own historic cellars and a cycle out through the vineyards, and Valtice becomes the clearest single place to learn Czech and Moravian wine.
Best months
The National Wine Salon is open year round except January, with self-service tasting by the glass, while the vineyards and cellar tours are at their best from late spring through the September harvest. Summer brings wine festivals and open cellars across the Mikulov and Valtice sub-regions. Book chateau cellar tastings ahead at weekends.
Getting there & around
Valtice is in the far south of Moravia near the Austrian border, about three hours by road or train from Prague and under an hour from Brno. The National Wine Salon is inside Valtice Chateau in the town centre, and the Chateau Valtice cellars are a short walk away. A car or a bike helps for reaching the vineyards and the neighbouring wine town of Mikulov.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Chateau Valtice
OutfitterChateau Valtice, the Vinne sklepy Valtice winery, is one of the oldest and largest wine producers in the Czech Republic and the country's biggest grape grower, based in the wine town of Valtice in South Moravia. Guided tastings run in its historic underground cellars, including the Castle Cellar dating to 1430 and the Cross Cellar from 1640, alongside a modern vinotheque. The family-run house draws its fruit from the limestone vineyards below the Palava hills.
National Wine Salon
OrganizerThe National Wine Salon, run by the Narodni vinarske centrum, presents the hundred best wines of the Czech Republic, chosen each year from a three-round national competition open to wineries across Moravia and Bohemia. The collection sits in the vaulted historic cellars beneath Valtice Chateau in the Lednice-Valtice UNESCO landscape, where visitors taste any wine by the glass on a self-service card. The exposition is open year round apart from January.