To say the Czechs love their beer is an understatement. In fact, Czechia has ranked as the world’s top consumer for 30 years in a row in one annual report, totaling 188.5 liters per person, per year. That’s far ahead of second place Austria, at 101.2 liters, and more than three times the 60.9 liters the United States consumes. One good place to understand why is in the city of Pilsen, where brewer Josef Groll unveiled the pilsner beer on Oct. 5, 1842. This revolution not only put Pilsen on the map but made the beer style the most popular in the world. That said, wine wins more of the spotlight the further east you go into the Moravia region, which covers the eastern half of the country. It’s been producing wine since the ninth century and devotes around 40,000 acres to producing the grapes for it. Some of these are now going to Autentická wines. “Czechs have really created a space for themselves with natural wines in recent years,” says Elizabeth Zahradnicek-Haas, editor-in-chief of Expats.cz, an English news site for the country’s international community. “These bottles are produced in organic mode without chemical sprays and fertilizers that destroy the soil of the vineyard.” |