A subterranean walk of delights
The
privilege issued by Emperor Friedrich lll to the town
of
In
accordance with the privilege issued by the Hungarian king Mathias Corvinus, ten suburban villages had to submit the fermented
wine by Martini (November 11th) to Retz.
Thus
already in the Middle Ages (like today) the wine was fermented in the cellars
of the wine-growers. The town cellars were therefore only intended for the
storage and maturing
of wine. Every citizen who already possessed a cellar beneath his house began
enlarging it according to his requirements, i.e. depending upon the quantity of
wine that could be purchased. The majority of these cellars were not only
extended length-wise, but also branched off into tunnels of various levels, creating
split-level cellars with two or three "floors". Most of the cellars
in Retz are interconnected on one level, and altogether the cellars stretch to
about double the surface of the streets above ground. A dimension merely
alluding to the gigantic quantities of wine previously stored here!
Part of the cellars are as old as the town itself,
which was founded in 1278 after the battle at Dürnkrut
- Jedenspeigen. The cellars could be dug beneath the
previously built town houses due to the geological situation: The town rests on
a mighty 30 meter deep sea sediment of quartz sand, as it once was the coastal
area of the Eggenburg Sea which, in the early
tertiary period (Miocene), washed the eastern slope of the Bohemian
granite-gneiss plateau as well as the present calvary hill in our area. The cellars were originally dug
directly into the sand and neither supported nor brick-lined. Above the sand deposit is a comparatively
thin layer of loam, protecting the cellars from precipitation. Due to the permanently moist sand, the air
humidity is constant at 88% in the cellars, whereas the temperature ranges
between 8 to 10 degrees Celsius. The ideal conditions for the
storage of wine.
During
World War ll parts of the cellars were surveyed, with
the objective of utilizing their capacity for armament purposes, like the manufature of aircraft parts. These intentions failed -
much to the relief of everyone in town - because of the humidity, which proved
too high.
The
entrance to the part of the cellars, which have been adapted for tours by the
tourist association, is located in the Znaimer Straße immediately next to the Volksbank.
During a long-term lease of the cellars belonging to the Gatterburg
family (1887), the Mössmer wine trading company had
these cellars in the old part of town vaulted with bricks, and before World War
l, built a tunnel measuring 130 meters
in length ("langer Gang") towards the town
centre. During the same period elevators were installed, and the tracks for a
narrow-gauge railway put down. The railway was not intended for the transport
of wine - the passages being way too narrow for the large wine barrels - but
for transporting the material from the tunnel excavation.
The tour
of about 1 km of subterranean Retz continues in the direction of the main
square, passing 8 wine tanks with a capacity of beyond 200.000 litres in total.
(The capacity has been taken from the commemorative publication of Mössmer 1932 ("180 Jahre Mössmer")
These
concrete tanks also originated before 1914. The iron door in the long tunnel
"langer Gang" marked the border between the
old town and the town centre. The next cellar is already located beneath the
houses on the town mainsquare. In 1983 a heat pump
system for the heating of the bank building above (Raiffeisenkassa)
was installed here.
During the
highest peak of the winetrade, in the middle of the
18th century, the Mössmer company
alone stored an excess of 2 million litres of wine in their cellars. These
wines were transported by horse-drawn carriages from Retz to
Starting
at the former Mössmer town cellar, the tourist association in 1974 dug a
22 m long connecting passage to the town hall cellars. These gothic cellars
date back to the 14th century and were connected to the cellars of the houses
on the south-side of the main square.
Having
walked 1 km through the "catacombs", one arrives in the Vinarium of the Hotel Althof
where 130 selected wines are offered for sale, and where a sample is yours to
taste, after which one returns to the surface. The distance covered corresponds
only to some 5% of the entire cellar system in Retz. With the aid of multimedia
projections the history of wine, commencing in ancient
The wealth
of centuries in the winetown Retz is revealed in its
cultural monuments:
Dear
guests, let yourselves be conducted into the Town
Hall, the Chapel of St Mary, the Dominican church and the parish church. Visit the landmark of the town, the windmill, the calvary hill, the military cemetery, the town museum and
the vinicultural path. Stroll along the walking
trails if you are looking for quiet, recreation and fresh air!
The
tourist association of Retz thanks you for visiting.
Dir.
Reinhold Griebler
Chairman
INFORMATION:
Office of
the Tourist Association
Hauptplatz 30, 2070 Retz
Tel. + Fax: 02942/2700
e-mail: tourismus@retz.at
http://www.retz.at
Town municipality (Stadtgemeinde) Retz, tel.:
02942/2223