Every year, we hear about the appearance of a new winery in one of Hungary’s wine districts, sometimes established by enthusiastic amateurs, sometimes by passionate professionals and sometimes by families seeking peace and quiet. Here we present three newcomers, from near our favourite lake.
Androsics Wine Estate – 2021
After long planning and two years of construction, Ferenc Androsics’s winery in the Haraszt vineyard in Balatonőszöd was completed in 2021. Although the family has been cultivating vines for more than 40 years, their plans and opportunities have come together, so that they can show through their wines the care and attention that has long characterised their farming.
The family currently cultivates 45 hectares of vines, with the first vineyard being planted 42 years ago, while in 2018, thanks to a grant, they started planning their own winemaking and gravity cellar with the help of Zsolt Liptai, winemaker at the Pannonhalma Archabbey.
Built in a stunning setting, surrounded by rows of vines, the estate has been committed to quality from the very first harvest, although the spotlight so far has only been on fresh, reductively produced wines from aromatic varieties such as Muscat Ottonel and Királyleányka.
Although the focus at the winery, with its impressive, panoramic wine terrace awaiting spring, is on the vines, winemaking and hospitality, the 13-hectare walnut grove yielding around 16,000 kilograms per year and the over 5 hectares of top-quality hazelnut orchards should not be forgotten either.
The Androsicses are new players, but their precision is reflected in their brand, attitude and conscious design. This is demonstrated by the fact that their fresh wines have already participated in several wine competitions and featured at the Budapest Central European Fashion Week. (Opening photo of the article is a view of Androsics Wine Estate)
Ösztön Cellar – 2019
Zoltán Szeles and Ágnes Krausz left their previous lives behind and began to build the next 50 years of their lives in a tiny cellar in Balatonszárszó. Although for a long time, they only visited the country’s cellars, both large and small, as wine lovers, in 2016, they found a small press house and cellar in the middle of a beautiful estate in their favourite holiday destination.
After that, they just followed their instincts, as the name of the cellar suggests. (Ösztön means ‘instinct’ in Hungarian). Zoltán started studying to become a winemaker almost immediately, and their wines were officially released in 2019.
The hobby has turned into a business and is now developing organically: they currently have few vineyards of their own, so they partly buy in grapes from other local producers for their wines, but several new plantings, including Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Olaszrizling, are coming into production each year, ensuring their continued growth.
Their story is very endearing, if only because they do all the work themselves, from planting to bottling, often with a lot of manual labour, with the utmost care, attention and creativity.
Since last summer, you have been able to register for a wine tasting at the cellar, where you get homemade sourdough bread, homemade spreads and the first wines along with the full story. If all goes according to plan, a winter tasting room will be completed this year, which will be a huge step forward for the tiny estate.
Reizinger Winery – 2019
Although the Reizingers’ young family winery is around 20 kilometres from Balatonvilágos, in Lajoskomárom, it is now officially connected to the Tolna Wine District.
The picturesque Fülöp Hill cellar row is at the heart of the village, which was founded in the 19th century by the Batthyány family. The vineyards of the area named after Fülöp Batthyány were already mentioned in an 1808 gentry report, but the diligence of the Swabians and the Slovaks who came to the area soon led to people of Lajos outgrowing the hill.
The vineyard area on Fülöp Hill is about 30 hectares, where 80% of the vines cultivated are white, mainly Olaszrizling and Zenit, while 20% are black, Kékfrankos, Zweigelt, Pinot Noir and Merlot.
Of the 220 small wineries on the cellar row, the Reizingers have only 0.14 hectares of their own vines, which is not good for quantity but good for quality. The Reizinger family, one of the founders of the village, has always been involved in crop and livestock farming, and has had a tradition of winemaking since the village was born.
One of the driving forces behind the winery is Attila, who learned the art of viticulture and winemaking from his ancestors and passed it on to his son Ádám, who now runs the winery.
The wines are all produced using reductive winemaking and low temperature-controlled fermentation, while the main varieties, such as Olaszrizling, Zenit and Pinot Noir, guarantee the rich aromas found in their wines.
