Hlohovec was established as a colonizing settlement of Pasov diocese in the 13th century on the border of Moravia and Lower Austria and it had been a part of Lower Austria until 1920. During the Czech-Hungarian wars, the village fell into decay and, around 1570, new Croatian colonists settled there – these have assimilated into the surrounding environment over the centuries and enriched the traditional costume and culture of Podluží with their southern temperament and the colours of their former homeland. The village is located in the Lednice-Valtice Cultural Landscape that was entered in 1996 into the World Heritage list of UNESCO. Hlohovec belongs to a wine subregion of Mikulov but as far as its folklore is concerned, it is the southernmost outpost of the Podluží region. Even though hundred-year-old cellars and rich tradition refer back to an ancient history of grape growing in the settlement, preserved documents related to viticulture in Hlohovec are mostly concerned with more recent events. At the end of the 19th century, the vineyards of the village were ravaged by Phylloxera lice. While most winegrowers tried to prevent the recurrence of a similar tragedy by grafting young plants onto a resistant American rootstock, in Hlohovec they started to plant Baco and Otelo cultivars, and wide propagation of these cultivars throughout the village led to their being renamed “Chorvát” (Croatian). The viticulture renaissance in the 1960s led to the liquidation of these uncultivated varieties and the grapevine fields of Šulaperk, Stará Hora and Mikulovska were primarily planted with the Müller-Thurgau, White Riesling, Saint Laurent and Zweigeltrebe varieties. Nowadays, vineyards cover more than a hundred hectares of the settlement’s area. Nonetheless, diligent “Hlohovec citizens” work another 60 hectares of vineyards in surrounding villages. Proof of the vitality of local citizens and their love of viticulture is the story of a nonagenarian who planted a new vineyard so that he and his neighbours could savour virgin Sauvignon blanc.         

The first cellars without pressing shops in Hlohovec were built in the backyards of agricultural homesteads. The land register from the reign of Empress Maria Theresa mentions six pressing shops on the edge of the settlement; nowadays there are more than 150 cellars in two cellar lanes of the village. A renowned wine-cellar lane is Šulaperk, an extensive development of underground cellars topped with pressing shops situated in an area originally meant for a Hlohovec school building. At the beginning of the 19th century, deep and relatively short stone cellars were constructed at the location, which were later extended by in-ground tunnel-vaulted pressing shops with simple fronts. The 1960s brought about a large-scale reconstruction of the old facades. The front walls were newly constructed limestone from the nearby Pavlov Hills, with the rectangular fronts of the old pressing shops replaced by triangular or arched gables. Thus Šulaperk acquired a rather uniform look, which is “interrupted” by several original pressing shops in the upper part of the colony. The front of a pressing shop of the Vlašic family is not much different from other cellars of Šulaperk, but take a few steps down into a vaulted spacious ‘besednica’ (discussion room) and you will find yourself at the gateway to a wine paradise, a mythical space of fellowship, merrymaking and light-heartedness. The cellar, with walls covered in graceful black moulding has been managed by five generations of the Vlašic family for more than 150 years – five first-born Charleses, descendants of proud and diligent Croatian settlers. The Kornels - which is the nickname of this family in Hlohovec, since there are several families with the surname of Vlašic in the village - are not only excellent winegrowers (cuvée Kornel is the family pride) but also wonderful story-tellers and singers... and also true citizens of Hlohovec by their life style, thinking and way of speech. The wine business here has its own lingo and Merlot, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the vineyard of Stará Hora are among the best wines I have ever tasted. A curiosity of the wine-cellar colony “U Kerchova” is a long cellar probably built by Moravian Anabaptists. This extensive underground labyrinth is equipped with side entrances and divided with partitions, by means of which several small-sized cellars, currently utilized by about ten owners, were created.