Mikulov

A deed that seemed to record Mikulov in 1173 is a 14th-century forgery; the first trustworthy mention comes in 1249, when the Přemyslid margrave Ottokar II granted the castle and its lands to the Austrian noble Henry I of Liechtenstein. The town gained market rights in 1279, and by 1368 it was one of the largest wine centres in Moravia. Its name, from the personal name Mikul, a short form of Mikuláš, replaced the German Nikolsburg only in the 19th century. In 1526 the Anabaptist leader Balthasar Hubmaier came here from Switzerland and was arrested the following year.

The Liechtensteins held the estate until 1560, and from 1575 it belonged to the Dietrichsteins. Under Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein the town was rebuilt as a Renaissance residence and for a time became one of the most important towns in Moravia; he invited the Piarists, who founded a college, and in 1621 he signed the Treaty of Nikolsburg with the Transylvanian prince Gabriel Bethlen at the castle. A fire in 1719 damaged the castle, which was rebuilt in its present form. After the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, talks begun here led to the Treaty of Prague.

Jews expelled from Vienna and Lower Austria settled here after 1421, and in the 16th century the town became the seat of the regional rabbi of Moravia; Judah Loew ben Bezalel served here from 1553 to 1573. By 1754 about 3,000 Jews made up half the population. German speakers were the majority until 1945. Of 472 Jews living here in 1938, 327 died in the Holocaust; after the war the German population was expelled, and the town's population regained its pre-war level only in the 1970s.

Wine shapes Mikulov's identity. It is the centre and namesake of the Mikulov wine sub-region, twelve registered vineyard tracts lie within the town, and a wine school was founded here in 1903. The 62-kilometre Mikulov Wine Trail winds out from the town through the wine villages, and the year turns on the autumn harvest festival, when the château becomes the stage for the town's celebrations. Evenings in the south often end in a family cellar rather than a pub.

The town's religious landscape is unusually layered. Holy Hill, with its Stations of the Cross and the Chapel of St Sebastian, has been a place of pilgrimage since the 17th century and is protected as a national cultural monument. The Piarist Church of St John the Baptist, consecrated in 1679, has interior paintings by Franz Anton Maulbertsch, and a neo-Gothic Orthodox church of St Nicholas dates from 1903. The former Jewish quarter, the synagogue museum and the cemetery recall the centuries when Mikulov was the heart of Moravian Jewry.

Mikulov looks south as much as north. The border with Austria runs at the edge of the town and its partner towns include neighbouring Drasenhofen, while the Iron Curtain Trail passes through and the South Moravian Way of St James ends at the border nearby, continuing as the Way of St James in the Weinviertel.

About 7,600 people live in Mikulov. Most of the municipal territory lies within the Pálava Protected Landscape Area, and the town spreads from the Mikulov Highlands into the lowlands to the east and west, with vineyards, fishponds and limestone hills on every side.

Wine and tourism are the backbone of the economy, but there is industry too: the largest employer based in the town is Gebauer a Griller Kabeltechnik, a maker of electric wires and cables with more than 500 staff, followed by Copeland Czech, which makes compressors. The road border crossing with Austria at Drasenhofen brings steady traffic on the I/52, which forms part of European route E461 and is to be extended as the D52 motorway. The machine-making and clay industries and oil at the edge of the Vienna Basin have also played a part in the local economy.

The day starts early, with a hot lunch in a canteen or pub, and evenings often end in a family wine cellar.

Moravian cooking shares the Czech staples but leans towards wine and fruit. Moravský vrabec, "Moravian sparrow", is pieces of pork roasted with garlic and caraway and served with dumplings and cabbage, and roast pork with dumplings and cabbage (vepřo-knedlo-zelo) is often considered the most typical Czech dish. Koláče, sweet yeast pastries usually round in shape, are a traditional treat at village feasts and weddings, and slivovice, plum brandy, is among Moravia's drinks.

Moravia accounts for around 96 per cent of the country's vineyards, and wine historians think Grüner Veltliner (Veltlínské zelené) and Welschriesling (Ryzlink vlašský) may have been introduced in Roman times. Pálava, a white grape bred in Moravia in 1953 from Gewürztraminer and Müller-Thurgau, is grown mostly in the Mikulov area; its wines are full-bodied, aromatic, subtly sweet and golden-yellow.

Burčák, a low-alcohol, partly fermented grape must, is a Moravian speciality, and the wine towns hold harvest festivals in autumn. The tradition is old: in the 2nd century the Roman 10th Legion built an outpost near the Pálava hills, and by the 14th century Mikulov ranked among the largest wine centres in Moravia.