Vinobraní is a viticultural festival right after the grape harvest. It’s a festival full of folkloric music, dance and, of course, delicious wine.
Vinobraní is an autumn celebrations and in many regions, it falls upon the same dates like the Dožínky festival. It is celebrated in regions with viticulture tradition, especially in Southern Moravia (Znojmo, Mikulov, Brno) but also in several Bohemian towns (Mělník, Roudnice nad Labem, Litoměřice, Velké Žernoseky).
The main part of vinobraní is wine and burčák degustation, often accompanied by markets, historical reenactments and music.
Září – víno vaří, říjen – víno pijem.
(September – wine is in the making, October – we’re drinking wine.)
Old tradition at vinobraní
In the middle ages, no one except the vineyard owner (vinař) and guard (hotař) was allowed to enter the vineyard (actually, there were exceptions for pregnant women). Entering or even taking grapes was punished with corporal punishments and sometimes even death. At the end of the season and before the Nativity of Mary (September 8), the guard would perform a ritual called Zarážení hory (“Thrusting of the mountain” – although here the word hora is used to describe a wooden pole). First, he would go to his priest to the confession and to get a bouquet of field flowers blessed. He’d get a long wooden pole, fasten a cross to one end and one apple on each arm. The blessed bouquet would also be fastened to the pole.
On the night of the Nativity of Mary, guards would dig a hole at the vineyard, place the pole across it and burn last year’s bouquet. The mayor and councilmen would walk around the pole three times in prayer, sprinkle it with holy water and placed three racemes in the hole. They they would place the pole in vertical position in the hole and fill the hole with earth. With this, the “mountain” would be considered thrusted. This was the last moment when unauthorized people could shortly set foot in the vineyard, now the entry was prohibited for another year.
Who was hotař?
Let’s remember an important charge that is nowadays forgotten. Hotař was a vineyard guard whose job it was to protect the grapes from people as well as animals. Hired for different periods of time in different regions, this office had one thing in common everywhere – it had to be a virtuous person who went to confession regularly.
These guards used to go for koleda between Christmas and New Year, always accompanied by a goat with a barrel into which they poured the wine received from the vineyard owners.
