Polska Toskania

As a winemaker from the area around Zielona Góra explains you need both passion and patience to get involved in this business, after all it takes ten years for the freshly planted vines to bear fruit. It was Flemish immigrants who founded the first vineyards here back in 1150. In the 19th century wine-growing flourished on the Oder river, that was until entire harvests in southern Europe fell victim to American grape phylloxera. Subsequently wine-growing went into decline, today however winemakers have been back for two decades now. Can Lubusz Province be to Poland what Tuscany means to Italy? Sommelier Tomasz Kolecki leads the viewer through very different wineries, introduces both winemakers and wines and speaks to local politicians, art historians and ethnologists about the importance of wine to the region's past, present and future. A Frenchman who grows wines in Poland predicts a bright future: soon he will be producing better champagne in his winery on the banks of the Oder than in the Champagne wine region itself. WMH