Modré Hory (a.k.a. Blue Slopes) Wine Trail

The Modré Hory (Blue Slopes) are formed from the cadasters of the villages of Bořetice, Kobylí, Němčičky, Velké Pavlovice and Vrbice. Grapes are cultivated on almost 1,200 hectares of vineyard tracks and grape varieties for making red wine (which have a deep-blue appearance) cover over half the vineyard area. It is not for nothing that Velké Pavlovice is known as the heart of Moravian red-wine production.

The symbolic circuit of Modré Hory will lead you over a wine landscape with wonderful views to the surrounding area, with many sacral monuments and matters of interest for tourists.

Almost the entire track is on tarmac roads or otherwise well-tended surfaces. The paths form a comprehensive circuit so that you can join wherever you wish and do your own wandering from the spot which suits you best.

Professor Vilém Kraus CSc. poetically describes Modré Hory as follows: “The five-pointed star-shaped area of Moravian wine villages with Velké Pavlovice in the leading position has since ancient times been known for its red wines from the vineyards slopes across the rolling landscape. To the southern plateau the “Rukapáně” (The Hand of God) opens like a fertile and calloused palm, from which emanate the five sprightly and creative fingers that modelled the nearby slopes surrounding the human habitations in the shape of fields, orchards, vineyards and forests. Through these notional fingers comes a chance pilgrim who syllabicates the names of the villages as if he would read the joy from the touch of a child’s hand: Velké Pavlovice, Němčičky, Bořetice, Kobylí and the highest placed Vrbice. When the late-summer evening twilight fades away over the landscape and catches the pilgrim in one of the many elevated places, blue silhouettes run up from the rolling countryside the slopes covered by vineyards which then disappear in the valleys into the bluish dusk of the red rooftops of the hamlets. The “Blue Slopes” prepare themselves submissively for a night’s sleep so that their vineyards are refreshed by the nocturnal cool, and the morning dew awakens them to a new, sun-drenched day. In the golden sunshine brightness the colour blue glistens among the dark green wine leaves, being the bluish hue of the grapes of the old-world’s varieties of Blaufränkisch, Blauer Portugieser and Saint Laurent.”

You can read the ancient wine laws of some of the five communities of the Blue Slopes, give some thought to them and above all to the life of our ancestors, walk along the tourist trails running through the Modré Hory landscape, seek out not only the red wines but also white wines known to our forefathers as well as their present creators as if it were the sun’s rays glistening in the glass. This is the scent of our grapes and the taste of our native Moravian land.