This is from a Prague Post article:
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/0922/featu3.php
From early September until sometime in October, the beloved half-fermented grape juice known as burčák enjoys its yearly star turn. Pale gold, cloudy, yeasty and honey-sweet, ephemeral burčák is nothing more than an early stage in the production of wine. Increasing in alcohol even as it is poured, it varies in strength — in optimal conditions, the last sip in the pitcher can be quite a bit stronger than one from just an hour earlier.
We consulted a panel of experts for their stories about burčák. To get started on your own story, look for it at a winery — often sold in reused plastic water bottles — or hit one of the city's better wine shops. But be careful. The poisoned feeling you might have after too much burčák comes from a very real poison: carbon monoxide given off by the yeast as it consumes the very grape juice you're consuming.
5 comments:
MM,
Thank you for the memories! I miss that special time of year when I didn't drink my weight in Budvar...hahahaha
Tits, it's too bad I never took you to my family's home town of Brno. They have amazing Burcak and wine cellars. In fact I believe I got totally drunk in a wine celler with my cousins the fist couple of months I got off the boat. haha!!! one day Tits I'll take you. mwaxoxox
Max, you still go to that French wine bar we used to hang out in or had your leaving party at? I think of it everytime I buy wine from La Vallee de la Loire.
Chatsy, it was called La Tonnelle and it closed a while ago, sometime before I moved back from England. I don't know if Jean-Robert is even still in Prague.
Chatsy,
I went to Brno several times and had bucak there during the season -although it would have been fun to go there with you. Brno was really the first Czech city I hung outin when I lived in that nightmare village Vbrno pod Pradedem.
We will return...one day! Nazdravi!
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