In Bratislava we stayed with an amateur winemaker named Imrich. When he had his house built in the Little Carpathian Mountains, an ancient wine-growing region (with its beginnings in Roman times) near Bratislava, he designed a small wine-making cellar as well. An engineer by day, and a jazz musician by night for many years, he loves his wine.
As he gave us a tour in a mix of Slovak and English, he pulled out a folder and opened it up. Inside he kept poems, songs, and stories about wine. He read one to us, interpreted by his daughter Monika, comparing wine to a woman. What a delight to spend time with a man of such good humor, who loves his craft not just for its end product, but for its poetry as well.
