The place: Uherské Hradiště, Strážnice and the villages of the búdy#
Slovácko is the eastern quarter of South Moravia’s wine country in Czechia, and the one my guests know least. It runs from the Morava river plain, south-east of Brno, to the first slopes of the White Carpathians on the Slovak border. The Slovácká sub-region is the third largest of the country’s six, about 4,065 hectares in 2025 across 118 wine villages and more than 5,600 registered growers. Slovácko is smallholder country: a few rows behind the house, a press house at the village edge, wine made for the family and the neighbours first.
The towns are Uherské Hradiště on the Morava, home of the Slovácké museum; Strážnice, with its open-air museum and the international folklore festival held every late June since 1946; and Bzenec, the wine-school town, teaching since 1899. The villages that matter to me are smaller: Blatnice pod Svatým Antonínkem, Mutěnice, Petrov, Starý Poddvorov, Vracov.
The word to learn is búda, the Slovácko name for the press house above a cellar; rows of them are the region’s architecture. Petrov’s Plže lane is the postcard. Mutěnice has close to 500. Blatnice has its own lane, Pod búdama, under the pilgrimage hill of St Anthony.
It is also the most folkloric of the four Moravian sub-regions. Kroje, the embroidered costumes, still come out for hody, the autumn feast days, and a cimbalom band in a cellar is not staged for visitors; it is a Saturday. For the wider picture, see my Czechia country guide and the South Moravia wine guide.
Terroir: loess, sand and the shelter of the White Carpathians#
The vineyards lie between roughly 180 and 350 metres. To the west is the flat, warm Morava plain; to the east the Bílé Karpaty rise and take the worst of the weather. It is warm, a little wetter than Mikulov under Pálava, with a season long enough for full ripeness in most years.
Soils change over short distances. Around Bzenec and Vracov the ground is sand, light and quick to warm: locals call the pine-covered dunes the Moravian Sahara, and vines on their edge give lean, fine Riesling. Toward Blatnice and Mutěnice it is loess and clay-loess, deeper and more generous, which suits Rulandské bílé and Sylvánské zelené.
Blatnice’s hill shows the logic. The tracts Roháče, Kamenice, Stará hora, Antonínek and Floriánky climb around the chapel of St Anthony, about 284 hectares for one village, facing south and south-west toward the plain.
Grapes and styles: Ryzlink rýnský, the Pinots and the Blatnický roháč blend#
Slovácko is white-wine country, and its whites are fuller than those of Znojmo to the west. Ryzlink rýnský (Riesling) leads around Bzenec and Blatnice; Rulandské bílé and Rulandské šedé (Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris), Chardonnay, Sylvánské zelené (Sylvaner), Tramín červený (Gewürztraminer) and the Czech-bred Muškát moravský fill out the plantings. Reds are a minority: Frankovka (Blaufränkisch) and Zweigeltrebe, mostly light and meant for the table.
The region’s one famous wine is a blend. Blatnický roháč is a cuvée of Ryzlink rýnský, Rulandské bílé and Sylvánské zelené, named after the Roháče vineyard above Blatnice. The tradition dates to around 1880; in 1896 the wine took gold at the Paris international exhibition, by local account the first award abroad for a Moravian wine. The name is a trademark held by the Blatnice producer Viniblat. A good roháč is dry and medium-bodied, Riesling’s citrus and Sylvaner’s quiet earth under a rounder Pinot Blanc middle: not a loud wine, and better with pork than alone.
Bzenec is the sparkling town. A wine cooperative bought the chateau and its cellars in 1938; traditional-method sekt is part of the town’s reputation. The Bzenec linden in the park, more than 900 years old, lends its name to a Riesling label, Bzenecká lipka.
Producers to know: Blatnice, Bzenec and Starý Poddvorov#
Zámecké vinařství Bzenec, Bzenec. The largest name here: around 540 hectares across the Slovácko, Mikulov and Znojmo sub-regions, cellars under the chateau, several champion titles at the Salon vín national competition, cellar tours and a wine bar. Clean, classic, přívlastek-labelled wines; the region’s reference mainstream.
Víno Blatel, Blatnice. Since 1990: Ryzlink rýnský, the Pinots, Sylvánské zelené and Muškát moravský, and by its own account the largest Merlot grower in Czechia. Tastings in the Pod búdama lane.
Viniblat, Blatnice. Jan Cícha’s company holds the Blatnický roháč trademark and makes the blend from the Blatnice slopes.
Vinařství Krásná hora, Starý Poddvorov. The Vybíral family’s five hectares on the Krásná hora tract, where Cistercians planted vines in the 13th century. Organic since 2009, biodynamic preparations since 2014, winemaker Ondřej Dubas: the Pinots, Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Riesling and Merlot, mostly aged in oak on fine lees, plus a traditional-method Blanc de Noir brut nature. Burgundian in leaning, restrained, the best Slovácko example of the middle ground I describe in what I pour, natural and classic.
Beyond these, the region is its growers. Mutěnice alone has about 600 wine-growing families and a “wine law book” of vineyard transfers begun in 1725. Most búdy are private; a knock on the right door, arranged in advance, is how the best afternoons begin.
What a day in Slovácko looks like on tour#
My scheduled South Moravia weekend touches Slovácko once, at Krásná hora late on the first day. The rest is an hour from Brno, further than Mikulov or Velké Pavlovice, and needs a full day, so I run it as a private day or a third day on the weekend.
We leave Brno at 09:00 and are in Blatnice by 10:15. We climb to the chapel of St Anthony first, because from the top the village explains itself: the tracts fanning out below, the búdy in their lane, the plain going hazy toward the Morava. Then down to Pod búdama for the roháč, drawn from the barrel with a koštýř, the glass pipette every Moravian host handles better than a sommelier.
Lunch is in a cellar: bread, škvarky and lard with onion, smoked meat, cheese, then roast pork with cabbage and dumplings. Roháč with the first plates, Frankovka lightly chilled with the pork.
Afternoon at Krásná hora in Starý Poddvorov, half an hour west, for the other face of the region: Pinots from oak, a Blanc de Noir, a conversation about compost and lees. We finish at Petrov before the light goes. The Plže lane, about 80 cellars first recorded in the 15th century, whitewashed with a blue skirt and painted flowers around the doors, has been a protected folk-architecture reserve since 1983. It is at its best around 18:00 in September, when the doors are open and someone is pressing. Back in Brno by 20:30.
A two-day version adds Mutěnice and Bzenec: the chateau cellars, a sekt before dinner, a cimbalom band nobody hired for us.
Practical: distances from Brno and the best months#
From Brno, the tour base: Starý Poddvorov 55 kilometres, about 50 minutes; Bzenec 65 kilometres, 55 minutes; Petrov, Strážnice and Uherské Hradiště 70 to 75 kilometres, about an hour. Uherské Hradiště is an hour east of Velké Pavlovice, so Slovácko pairs with the Velké Pavlovice sub-region on a two-day loop. Czechia has a zero-tolerance drink-driving law, so we travel with a driver.
Best months: May to June, when the vines are green, villages hold open-cellar weekends and Strážnice fills for the folklore festival; September for harvest, burčák (partly fermented must) and the hody feasts; October for quiet cellars and warm colour. Winter tastings are by appointment, at 10 to 12 °C, and the búdy lanes are empty and handsome in frost.
Cards work in the towns and at the larger wineries; small búdy are often cash only, and euros rarely help. Bring korunas, a warm layer and shoes for the hill. The Czechia guide covers the neighbouring sub-regions.
