Organic wine from Koch Winery

Castellum is a resistant grape with mostly “blue blood”: it has 50% Rhine Riesling among its ancestors. Koch Castellum is an organic white wine from “happy grape” – a concept developed by Csaba Koch, the owner of the estate.

Mostly noble varieties

Castellum – or Pannonia as it is also called – a grape created by multiple crossings in Serbia by Petar Cindrić, Nada Korać and Vladimir Kovač. As Dr. Petar Cindrić explained it on Agroforum.hu, only 6.25% of the genetic material of the variety comes from North American grapes (Vitis rupestris, Vitis berlandieri, Vitis labrusca, Vitis lincecumii) – this part gives the resistancy against fungal diseases. More than 90% comes from “noble”, Vitis vinifera: 50% Rhine Riesling, 12.5% Tramini and Bouvier and 15.6% from 8 different varieties (Itália, Afuz Ali, Chasselas, Clairette, Oeilade, Aramon, Alicante Boushet and an unknown variety).

To see the family tree of the tree, click here.

The taste of nature

“With conscious canopy management it took us four years of chemical-free cultivation to find the taste of nature in this wine.” According to the happy grape concept the vines are not forced into wires, they are allowed to grow as they want to use as much sunshine as possible. The wine is certified organic by Biokontroll Hungaria Ltd, which means that at Koch they use only sulphur, copper, water glass (sodium silicate), stone powders, plant extracts. They also use matured cow manure and green manure from papilionaceous flowers.

More about the happy grape concept on IWC Canopy website written by Chris Boiling
More about Koch Winery

The sommelier champion about Koch Castellum 2021

Evans Victoria, the sommelier champion of Hungary (2020) described the wine as it follows: “The nose begins with nettle, green herbs and white flash apple. The mix of the notes recalls spring and sunshine. On the palate the notes of the nose appear again, each of them, complemented with freshly pressed peach juice. Rich in spices and floral notes. Nectarine and citrus notes also appear. Perfect choice of winelovers fond of fruity and light bodied wines with complexity.”
The team of “Boroskóla” YouTubers made a spread of smoked trout (mixed with butter, cream cheese, mustard and some black pepper).
Watch the video (the spread is towards the end at 3.48)