lake balaton Archives - Hungarianwines

Villa Sandahl 20th birthday party on 7 September in Badacsony

Hungarianwines.eu — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 16:15:13 +0000

To make your glass half full

One of the most peculiar estates of Hungary has been making astonishing wines for two decades. From only one grape variety – Rhine Riesling –, yet several different wines are made every year, and when they enter a contest, they come home with gold. The boutique winery has a guest house as well with stunning view of Lake Balaton. The September event will take place in one of their most beautiful vineyards.

Date and time: 7 September (Saturday) 2024, 14.00–20.00
Venue: Villa Sandahl wine terrace, 8261 Badacsony, Római út 203/1
What will happen? Relaxed, outdoor wine tasting, surprise Rieslings from the cellar, stories from the owners and the team members, guitar music and good food.
Entrance is free, but registration is needed, write to here.
Transfer bus is available from and to Budapest, leaving at 10.00 and arriving back at 23.00. Price per person: 8000 HUF. Places are limited, if you are intersted, contact Villa Sandahl team.

More about Villa Sandahl

Latest success: Villa Sandahl won two gold medals at the 3rd international Winelovers Wine Awards with two wines from the 2022 vintage. ‘Out of the blue’ received 90 points, while ‘Roses darling’ got 91 points, to make it the second best stainless steel aged white wine in the whole contest.

Starling Village by Villa Sandahl in Badacsony

Rabbit Periscope Rhine Riesling – the Winewriters’ choice

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Bubbly of the weekend: Evolution Rosé Brut 2016

Hungarianwines.eu — Sat, 07 May 2022 09:07:47 +0000

By Garamvári Vineyard at Lake Balaton

The bottle fermented Pinot Noir rosé sparkling from Garamvári Vineyard is a full flavoured refreshment, perfect for a May picnic. Recipe with the wine: pork tenderloin with potato soufflé and rosé sparkling cream.

VinAgora – golden rain again

Garamvári Vineyard is a renowned Hungarian winery with several prestgious titles like Winemaker of the Year (for the founder, Vencel Garamvári) or Winery of the Year. The quality work is constant: last year the winemaker, Péter Baranyai was selected The Most Successful Winemaker of VinAgora, and at the latest edition of VinAgora international wine contest Garamvári Vineyard won 5 gold medals and one silver medal.

Garamvári Imperial Extra Dry and Imperial Rose Extra Dry are sparkling wines made for Lidl supermarket chain – amazing examples of good price-value products.

Evolution with time

Garamvári Rosé is elegant, made from 100% pinot noir grapes and can only be produced by harvesting perfectly healthy bunches. The grape juice, which exudes at the time of pressing, is macerated for 2-3 hours to give it the light salmon colour with orange tones that is typical of Pinot Noir. The base wine has a firm backbone, delicate acidity, and a rich flavour, which is combined with a little tannin from the secondary fermentation to give it a unique taste. The sweet-tart flavours of strawberry, wild raspberry, and cherry are the first flavours you taste. Subtle yeasty, brioche notes emerge later from behind the fruity ones, alongside brisk but pleasant acidity.
Evolution Rosé Brut Magnum 2016 is now available with discount!

More information and webshop

Recipe with Garamvári Evolution Rose:

Pork tenderloin with potato soufflé and rosé sparkling cream

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Two French guys in a Hungarian vineyard

Hungarianwines.eu — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 17:39:31 +0000

3 months at biodynamic Kristinus

Text by Guillaume Plewa

Jeremy and I have completed a master’s degree in international business and wine in France, with different studies in business as well as in viticulture and oenology. We have worked in different areas of the wine industry in different countries but we did not work in the cellar for the wine-making process, so we wanted to find a job to learn more about it and to get a new experience.

At the beginning we focused on North America, to discover a new region, we made several job interviews and some wineries offered jobs, but COVID made visa applications complicated. So, we decided to find a job in Europe, in a country that does not border France, to go to a place we know less about.

If money matters

We looked for in Hungary and https://hungarianwines.eu/ made our work easier, because there was a list of good wineries and it was written in English. We contacted Ms. Ágnes Németh, who gave us some advice and we contacted the different wineries. Thus we found a three-month job in the biodynamic Kristinus Wine Estate in the winemaking process.

I must say that it was not so easy, because not everyone speaks English. Moreover, it is important to talk about salary, because it is lower than the French salary (the minimum salary is 2 times lower here, or even more), so it is important to negotiate benefits and other things beforehand. However, if the financial aspect is not a problem, skip this step.

It is also important to find a company that handles all the paperwork, we were very lucky with domain Kristinus, the team helped us all the time, thanks again to them (they will recognize themselves).

“Biodynamics is still a step above…”

Now let me talk a bit more about our experiences and compare with our previous experiences:

– We can say that biodynamics is something that requires a lot of time and manpower, because a lot of work is manual. We worked for organic wineries, but biodynamics is still a step above, requiring real know-how and undeniable knowledge.

– Compared to France, the specifications are lighter, you can plant more different grape varieties and offer a wider range of wines, with original blends. At Kristinus estate, we used different methods of vinification, it is quite incredible the work of the whole cellar team: plot by plot vinification, whole-bunch maceration even for some whites, full vinification in barrels, maceration in amphora….

– Orange wine is something more popular, in France it is also produced more and more, but it does not have the same popularity yet. In any case, it requires more work than classic white wine maceration.

– There are lots of young estates (created less than 15 years ago), so they have their whole history to create so marketing is used a lot, because it is essential to become known if you want to sell your wine. We also noticed that around Balaton, a lot of wineries are using Californian style wineries (restaurant, hotel…), ideal for wine tourism. In France, we are more and more involved in these projects, but we are still a little late.

– From a communication point of view, in France our communication at work is much more informal. But this has not prevented us from creating links thanks to the kindness of the employees.

Sun cream – a luxury product

We also notice that the life in Hungary is far from being simple, for the locals considering the cost of life. Many products are imported in Hungary, they are expensive, for example the electronic devices, the cars. Not to mention the price of gasoline, the costs for a doctor… One example that particularly shocked me was the price of sun cream (imported product), it was even more expensive than in France, as a result the employees don’t use it.

This remains our point of view, anyway this experience has been very enriching, but not easy every day because in Hungary few people speak English well, except in Budapest. It is difficult to communicate, except if you have some knowledge of German, but fortunately at Kristinus lot of people speak English well.

Special thanks

We would like to thank everyone and especially Florian (Winemaker & Director) and Lászlo (the Vineyard Manager) who welcomed us very well and showed us different places and vineyard, the culture, the gastronomy…

Thanks also to Marcell, for guiding us in the cellar (your knowledge and experience were priceless), Nikolett for being present at all times and especially with the administration (not easy every day), Bianka for all the papers to fill in, Orsolya for all the dishes cooked and especially for her time accorded to help us…

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Liquid Sunshine – that’s what we need in November

Hungarianwines.eu — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 08:44:54 +0000

Craft Wine in the Netherlands offers Kristinus Liquid Sunshine with other treasures in a 6 pack of terroir driven, cool wines – at special price now. What do the Dutch guys say about the wine? “Juicy, warm character, charming spiciness with delicious mouth watering acidity and some traces of green tea on the finish. Pleasant, entertaining wine with many hidden facets that will reveal themselves sip by sip.” Totally agree.

Craft Wine, by Amsterdam based company Go Good, is a bottle shop for distribution of authentic, natural and biodynamic wines. “Embracing much more than our own import we also offer fine wines imported by colleagues, partners and friends. All wines are produced by passionate winemakers recognizing the importance of terroir and the rules of nature.”

Amphora aged orange wine

Kristinus Wine Estate of Lake Balaton cultivates its vineyard according to biodynamic principles, and since Florian Zaruba, CEO started to manage the estate with the less intervention possible, Kristinus wines have their own character, they are unique and exciting. While we can find several “natural wines” which are simply faulty, with Kristinus wines it is not the case. The accurate work results clean and spotless wines, keeping their character as much as possible.

(Read our earlier article “No more gas masks” about the reasons behind the conversion of Kristinus).

Liquid Sunshine is made of Chardonnay and Szürkebarát (Pinot Gris). “Through this low intervention, natural wine, we wanted to show the taste of the sun shining above our vivid vineyards and the fresh, healthy grapes – we aimed to bottle the summer. This orange wine is made from beautiful, hand-picked Chardonnay and fermented on the skin in Amphora for 24 days. After pressing, we blended it with our stunning Szürkebarát orange wine and bottled it without filtration.”

More about Liquid Sunshine and other Kristinus wines

Since we are so desperate to get some sunshine in November, we chose Kristinus for Winery of the Week this week on our Facebook page.

Order Kristinus wines (including Liquid Sunshine) from Winelovers Webshop, they ship to every European country.

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When Balaton turns into red

Hungarianwines.eu — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 08:51:15 +0000

The red wines of the lake region

Lake Balaton is famous for its indigenous white whites, but are there any gread red wines here? Yes – and they can all be tasted in one day. On December 8 the 4th Red Balaton tasting will take place, held on the wine terrace of Jásdi Winery in the town of Csopak. This year 13 wineries will present their reds. In Hungary we celebrate the generous bishop, Santa Claus on 6 December, he is depicted as an old man in red coat, bringing presents to nice kids. Hopefully we were nice this year, and Santa will pour great red wines… The tasting begins at 2 pm and finishes at 6 pm. After the walk around tasting two local restaurants, „Szomszéd kertje” and Petrányi wine terrace will await guests for wine dinners. Advanced booking is necessary both for the event and for the dinners. Garamvári Winery is one of the exhibitors of Red Balaton. Their Merlot proves that the lake region is capable of fine, elegant red wines with body: „Cherry and forrest fruit characters return in its taste, combined with a hint of dark chocolate.” Tickets cost 8000 HUF / person (25 euros) and must be ordered in advance.

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Sliding accross the largest lake of Europe

Hungarianwines.eu — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 15:18:25 +0000

Lake Balaton is not only the biggest lake and holiday resort in Hungary, but it’s the largest lake in Europe as well, a favourite resort of my Europeans. The light blue water has a nice tempterature in summer, plenty of good restaurants dot the beach and 5 wine regions out of the 22 Hungarian wine regions are situated around the lake. Still it is a struggle to make the population be aware of the fact that Balaton is ’open all year’, its towns and villages offer enough atrractions througout the whole year.

One of the most important mass event is the swimming accross the lake in July, when thousands of sportmen and enthusiastic amateurs complete the 5,2 km race. Yesterday the activists of the resort – mostly members of The Circle of Balaton – organized a ’Sliding across Lake Balaton’ between Badacsony (north beach) to Fonyód (south beach). The mass event was really an event for the masses: more then 7000 people slode accross by skate, sleigh or by some other device. Due to the severe winter in Hungary the lake has a firm and safe ice surface, no one was injured. Of course the whole event was secured by the water guards and the participants could even use a free app to find their way – though it was needless, since the thousands of happy sliders formed a ’human chain’ accross the lake.

As Gábor Kardos, the man behind the event said previously: this was the biggest extreme winter event of a community in Europe!

Here is a video with the breathtaking view of the grand crossing from the air:

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