A sipping trip through Slovakia

From cola and wine to partially fermented beverages, the locally made drinks in Slovakia are varied and delicious

- Arun Janardhan

At the dinner table at Vinium Galeria Bozen in Pezinok, Slovakia, a distinguished gentleman walks up to our table.

Dressed in a smart chequered shirt, his silver hair neatly parted, he enquires if we are from India. He had recently been to Delhi-Jaipur-Agra, so his curiosity seemed natural.

He delights at our answer, immediately orders for us a burčiak, a partially fermented drink that's somewhere between grape juice and wine. Its equivalent would be the urrak in Goa, the first distil of feni.

The burčiak, available only in autumn in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, tastes like lemon liqueur, with a tangy, refreshing flavour that's easy to drink being low on alcohol content. But more than the burčiak, it's the easy hospitality, the friendliness of residents that impresses in this fairly nondescript town 20km south of the Slovakian capital of Bratislava.

It's a recurring theme through the four days we spend driving around Slovakia, the friendliness, the easy but not overbearing warmth. That, combined with the country's good-looking people and better-looking landscapes, its underrated wine, overrated pilsner and unheralded plum brandy, the 130kmph highways and ski-slopes that turn into breathless treks in summer months, makes for a memorable trip to central Europe.

At the Limbavin winery, named after the Limbach region of Modra, about 20km north of Bratislava, stacks of bottles are being labelled by Ladislav Pucek. He is the chief wine maker of Limbavin. Pucek gives us a quick round of tasting.

Slovakia has a long history of making wine though its produce is not as widely travelled—or known—as France, Italy, Spain or several other European nations. The region we are in is the Small Carpathian wine-growing region, which produces the Slovak version of Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Noir and Gris, besides Gewurztraiminer, Cabernet Sauvignon, Albernet, St Laurent and Zweigeltrebe.