With the Internet opening doors to heretofore unknown cultures and customs, people from Sydney to Seoul, Boston to Bratislava are eagerly exploring lifestyles around the world.

Striking eyes in virtual reality as well as in person are everything from awe-inspiring landscapes to au courant fashion, centuries-old landmarks to efficient mass transit.

Additionally, we’re discovering new taste treats as we tuck into hearty fare that resembles, one way or another, the dishes we were raised on.

If we’ve included wine in our diets, then the possibilities are endless in finding one that satisfies our palates.

During visits to the spectacular city of Prague, we kept hearing about wine treasures beyond Moravia — wines made in small towns that dot the landscape to the east of the border that now divides former Czechoslovakia into independent nations.

Armed with a couple of maps, a friend (and translator born in Slovakia’s Kosice) and a know-it-all driver, I set out to explore a winegrowing region the natives call Maly Karpaty, just outside the capital city of Bratislava.

Bratislava lies within easy reach of the Small Carpathian Mountains, a beautiful area of dreamy hills and lush valleys whose picturesque southern slopes are covered by forests and vineyards. Here and there statues of St. Urban, the patron saint of winemaking, dot the area.

Outstanding wines can be sampled at wineries and country inns and, now, in a national wine museum and cellar in the winemaking town of Pezinok.

The Small Carpathians begin at the confluence of the Danube and Morava Rivers and spread out to the northeast for about 50 kilometers. The romantic ruins of Devin Castle, once a strategic medieval stronghold, rise above the point where the two rivers meet. Archaeologists have discovered traces of ancient Roman and Slavic presence here. In 1805, Napoleonic troops destroyed the castle — we can see how it once looked thanks only to a painting by Canaletto completed in 1763.

Devin is easily reachable from downtown Bratislava and, like the entire Small Carpathian region, is a favorite leisure time spot for Bratislava residents. The castle overlooks the nearby Austrian border, and it is difficult to imagine that little more than 15 years ago, that frontier marked the heavily guarded perimeter of the Iron Curtain.

Once our driver admits he’s lost, we turn the navigational duties over to my friend, Pavol, who guides us along and through the big city maze of freeways and offramps that spin off toward Vienna, Budapest and another important wine region, not far from Kosice, home to Slovakia’s Tokay growers.

We are headed to Pezinok, the center of this winemaking region, where the nation’s winemaking history can be traced as far back as the 7th century B.C. That’s when Celtic settlers — undoubtedly tutored in winemaking by the Romans — are first thought to have used the hilly land northeast of Bratislava to grow vines.

And wine has been made here since that time. Because Slovakia is located on the northern edge of the winemaking world, its hot summers and cold winters make it ideal for producing fruity whites and full-bodied reds.

In the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the nobility prized the white wines made in Maly Karpaty, the red wines made near the southwestern border with Hungary and, most of all, the sweet wines of the Tokay region, which the Slovakia/Hungary border bifurcates today.

During four decades of Communism, Slovakia produced the republic’s most highly regarded wines, while the Czechs focused on producing the world’s best beer.

But two world wars and state-run, centralized viticulture (that continued until the Velvet Revolution in 1989) took their toll on Slovakian winemaking tradition.

However, since independence in 1993, an earnest, albeit small group of winemakers — concentrated in the Small Carpathians and in the Tokay region — have been working hard to restore Slovakia’s winemaking heritage.

Slovaks enjoy wine

There’s good reason Slovak wines are not known beyond the borders of the country. Slovakia produces but three-tenths of 1 percent of all the wine made in Europe and its inhabitants are more than capable of consuming it all.

Actually, a very small amount of Slovak wine is exported, shipped to ports as far away as Japan.

But the Slovaks themselves consume the lion’s share of the average annual production — 302,000 hectoliters, or 8 million gallons — and more. Yes, annual wine consumption in this eastern European country is approaching 525,000 hectoliters, meaning the Slovaks import 5.8 million gallons to supplement what their own wine industry produces from the annual harvest.

We learned this particular fact when we visited Národny Salon Vin Slovenskej Republiky, which translates to the Slovak National Collection of Wine, located in an old castle in the center of Pezinok.

This is a relatively new operation, open less than a year, showcasing the best wines produced in Slovakia. We learned about it during a visit to the town’s information bureau where we had gone initially to secure a map of area wine producers and cellars.

However, this was a godsend, for it is run by a pair of English-speaking sommeliers, Radovan Polak and Lubomir Figura, who are responsible for stocking this ancient cellar with 100 of the best wines from recent vintages.

And Tuesdays through Sundays, between the hours of 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., these young wine experts are quite happy to provide visitors with an extensive tasting of Slovakian wines for a nominal fee. During the 90-minute tasting, you’ll be able to learn quite a bit about all winegrowing regions in Slovakia and, with the help of Polak and Figura, schedule visits to the cellars of the producers whose wines you’ve singled out during the tasting. Just don’t drop by on a Monday as it’s the only day the facility is closed.

(Located about 14 miles northeast of Bratislava, Pezinok is a small city (about 21,000) with a few small inexpensive hotels and restaurants offering regional fare. For wine geeks who shy away from big cities, this is a city one could use as a base of operations for visiting wine producers as well as exploring the capital on several day trips.)

Here are a few wine facts — 80 percent of the grapes planted in Slovakia are made into white wine, the remaining 20 percent red.

The three white grapes leading production figures in Slovakia are Veltlinske Zelené (or Gruner Veltliner as it’s known in Austria where it’s the most widely planted grape), Rizling Vlassky (or Welschriesling, a grape completely unrelated to the riesling of Germany, which the Italians call Riesling Italico) and Müller-Thurgau (a variety that thrives all over central and eastern Europe).

The two most widely planted red grapes in Slovakia are Frankovka Modra (Blaufränkisch in Austria, or Lemberger in Germany) and Svatovavrinecke (also cultivated in the Czech Republic, best known as St. Laurent, most commonly encountered in Austria’s Burgenland).

Proof in the glass

We tasted more than a dozen wines recommended by the sommeliers, but don’t look to find any of these on local retailers’ shelves:

• Dr. Zuzana Zarubova 2005 Rizling Vlassky (Welschriesling), 330 SKK (Slovakian Koruny), $14:  A citrus nose is duplicated on the palate, a finely balanced wine with impressive acidity (which is an attribute of Slovakian whites) and a slightly off-dry finish.

• Villa Vino Raca 1997 Rizling Rynsky (German Riesling), 230 SKK ($10): An impressive riesling that’s been aging in the bottle since ’99 from an estate near Bratislava. A bit of the expected petrol nose, great acid and citrus combine on the palate. And the alcohol was but 12.1 percent. I bought some of this to enjoy later.

• Pivnica Orechova 2005 Late Harvest Chardonnay, 230 SKK ($10): Exuding the attributes of a fine Puligny-Montrachet, this is a steely chardonnay from eastern Slovakia with a semi-sweet finish, also with low alcohol (12.2). If it were imported, this one could easily become a great sipper for those among us who relish first rate chardonnays.

• Dvory nad Zitavou 2004 Rulandske Sede (Pinot Gris), 230 SKK ($10): From a producer in the southernmost reaches of Slovakia, it’s a pinot gris that’s full in the mouth, with bread and apricot notes and a marvelous long finish. This one also impressed.

• Karpatska Perla 2005 Late Harvest Aurelius, 230 SKK ($10): A crossing of German Riesling and Neuberger (itself a cross of Roter Veltliner and Sylvaner), this wine comes from vineyards near Pezinok, from one of the largest producers in Slovakia. While this grape was developed in the Czech Republic, it has shown promise in Slovakia. This late harvest version is a fruity wine with lots of honey and spice and is a delight to drink on its own.

• Vino Mrva & Stanko 2005 Sauvignon (Blanc), 360 SKK ($15): Termed “the champion of the whites” by sommelier Polak, this wine has both grassy notes and great acid. The ripe fruit offers a bit of lemon on entry and mid-palate and a wash of orange on the finish — a lovely wine with 12 percent alcohol.

• Fundus Regius 2005 Frankovka Modra, 360 SKK ($15): Produced from hand-selected fruit grown in eastern Slovakia, this wine has a slightly medicinal nose, yet the palate offers a bit of spice (not unlike the Lemberger from Germany’s Baden) along with black cherries and a touch of almonds on the finish.

• Pivnice Radosina 2005 Alibernet, 360 SKK ($15): This grape is a crossing of Alicante Bouschet and Cabernet Sauvignon developed in the Ukraine and a favorite of a number of Slovak producers. In fact, 14 of the 100 wines offered at the salon are Alibernet. This one’s from a southern grower, floral and a bit of green olive on the nose, good structure and tasty black fruit.

• Vino Matysak 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, 540 SKK ($24): A ripe, reportedly semi-dry (although I didn’t detect much residual sugar) from southern Slovakia, it’s a well balanced wine with enough tannin to age well, and lots of wild black fruit and a dollop of vanilla on the palate. It’s a cabernet that speaks to its terroir.

• J & J Ostrozovic 1999 Tokaj (5 putnovy, the Slovak rating equating to Hungary’s puttonyos), 390 SKK ($17): A wine of great structure from southeastern Slovakia’s Tokay region, with beautiful acid and fruit balance, great caramel color and a lush, long finish. Wish we could find this one at a Bay Area wine shop, or even online for that matter.

If you’re taking a trip to Prague any time soon, take a day or two and visit the winegrowing regions of Slovakia. You’ll find a lot of wine to drink and you won’t have to float a loan to do so. By the way, the super-highway drive from Prague to Bratislava takes little more than three hours, so a day trip to Maly Karpaty is within reason.