Decanter, IWC Canopy, Tom Stevenson gold medals, Enotria & Coe, Andreas Larsson

At a recent award ceremony, Paul Symington, the president of the association Primum Familiae Vini has claimed that family wine estates are not “dinosaurs”, but they are the future, the ideal form of businesses since “Family companies are the sustainable bedrock of local and regional economies”. However, every family estate has a story of origin, there is a date, when everything began. With Christian and Andrea Sauska the future has just begun.

The future is here

An article published this week on Decanter.com tells us the story of their wine estate and gives a good argument for their success: “Christian and Andrea are both industry outsiders and have therefore been open to new ideas and seeking help from consultants, rather than blindly following tradition. For instance, their 113 Cuvée from the Tokaj region expresses the terroir through a smart blend of non-traditional Chardonnay and Sauvignon along with local Hárslevelű and Furmint.” The article also emphasises their strong focus on sustainability with – for example – “using” a herd of babydoll sheep in spite of herbicides.

Another article on IWC Canopy earlier this year features the spectacular, UFO-like new estate building in Tokaj, which is not ready, yet a star of design and architecture magazines. Chris Boiling, the author of this article explains that besides the fancy winery, the family pays extra attention to the vineyards as well. “Christian and Andrea brought in French soil experts Claude and Lydia Bourguignon in 2005 to help them restore the vineyards from the abuse – “and torture” – they had received during 40 years of Communist rule.“

Read Decanter article
Read Canopy article
More about Sauska

The Best Sparkling Wine of Hungary

Sauska estate has a new distributor in the UK, and it seems to be a fruitful relationship: the wines are popular among British winelovers both from Sauska’s Villány and Tokaj estate. (Villány is the southernmost wine region of Hungary of black grapes with the more and more famous Villány Franc, the varietal Cabernet Franc of the region, while Tokaj is the land of not only the luscious Tokaji Aszú wines, but exciting, complex white wines and méthode traditionnelle sparkling wines.) Enotria & Coe offers a wide range of Sauska wines from the bottle fermented sparkling wines through single vineyard wines, indigenous reds like Kadarka to the unmissable Tokaji Aszú.

As for sparkling, the hot topic is undoubtedly Regis Camus, former Piper-Heidsieck chef du cave as a consultant. “Sparkling wine to me is the finest instrument to showcase what this world-class terroir is capable of. Creating the right vineyard structure for sparkling wine is an extremely complex and beautifully diverse process involving analytical and instinctive elements. To me, Régis is the perfect partner in crime on this journey.” – says Christian Sauska in the above mentioned Canopy article. And the outcome of this joint crime? At the latest Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championship Sauska NW Brut has been selected The Best Sparkling Wine of Hungary (Sauska NV Rosé Brut received a silver medal). Well, cheers with that to the future!

The full selection of Sauska wines at Enotria & Coe

More about CSWWC

Watch Andreas Larsson tasting Sauska Furmint 2020

(Also available at Enotria & Coe)