As we reported earlier, 233 wineries entered 995 wines from all the 22 wine regions at the 45th Hungarian National Wine Contest organised by the National Council of Wine Communities. 10 grand gold, 215 gold and 78 silver medals were given along with 18 special awards. The special awards are listed here, now let us recommend 5 must-try wines among the gold medal winners.

St. Martin’s Day in Pannonhalma wine region

Are you based in Hungary and miss your family? Take part in the St. Martin’s Day “fiesta” at Babarczi in a tiny town near the city of Győr and you will feel at home, guaranteed! Babarczi Vineyard and Winery has collected several national and international gold medals and many top restaurants listed their wines, but the best experience is still to visit them and enjoy a true “Babarczi-party” with mouth-watering food and wines, warm and cosy atmosphere, laughter and dance.

Duck rillettes cover photo and recipe here by Chef Charlie
Babarczi Rhine Riesling in the cover photo pairs well with the fatty rillettes due to its crispy, brilliant acidity and elevating fruit profile.

Why on St. Martin’s Day?
Because wineries have their doors wide open at the weekend closest to St. Martin’s name day (11 November).

Why do we eat duck and goose dishes on St. Martin’s Day?
Scroll down for the answer.

What happens at Babarczi estate on the 8th of November?
Visitors can choose between 4 time slots to participate in a tasting of 5 wines accompanied by duck rillettes (by Izsóp restaurant) and fresh bread.

Tasting time options and prices
– 12.50-14.35 – 6500 HUF
– 14.50-16.35 – 6500 HUF
– 16.50-18.35 – 8000 HUF
– 18.50-20.35 – 8000 HUF
The afternoon tastings are slightly more expensive, because from 5 pm live music will be provided by a duo called AcouStone.
If you must drive, the same price applies, but you can take a bottle home.

How to book?
Write an email to the winery and don’t forget to mention the time slot you prefer.

Why do we eat duck and goose dishes on St. Martin’s Day?

Saint Martin has a special importance for Hungarians, since the famous bishop was born in the province of Savaria in 316 in the Roman Empire, in the territory of Hungary. Savaria is now called Szombathely, a city of about 90 000 inhabitants, and the church stands at his presumable birthday to commemorate him.
As a teenager, he became Christian to his father’s dislike. His father was a soldier of the Roman Empire and made his son to join the army as well. According to the legend once Martin cut his coat with his sword and gave half of it to a beggar in the street who had been robbed of his clothes. At the age of 22, Martin baptized, and devoted all his life to God. He founded the first monastery in Europe. He was so modest, that – as the legend says – he hid among the geese to avoid being made a bishop. As a memory to his modest character, people eat dishes made of goose or duck on his name day on (and around) 11 November.

More about Babarczi Vineyard and Winery

Though Hungarian is the most well-known for its sweet wines from Tokaj, while in other wine regions producers like placing emphasis on blockbuster red wines, our country is first and foremost a white wine country. Let us introduce three great white wines, all gold winners of the latest edition of Berliner Wine Trophy.

 

The results of the Berliner Wine Trophy Summer Tasting are available. At this session Hungary is the 5th on the medal ranking with 81 medals after Italy (327 medals), Germany (286 medals), Spain (17) and France (107). Our country collected 3 Grand Gold medals – all for Tokaji Aszú wines –, 54 gold medals and 24 silver medals.

See all Hungarian medal winners here

Thummerer Egri Csillag Superior 2024, Eger

Egri Csillag is a white blend, a relatively new phenomenon in Eger wine region, the homeland of Egri Bikavér (Bull’s Blood), the famous red blend. Egri Csillag Classicus is an approachable, easy-drinking category, while Egri Csillag Superior is a “wine for thought”, more complexity, more pleasure.
This Thummerer wine is made of Tramini, Zenit, Királyleányka and Chardonnay. After harvesting the fully ripened grapes, the must fermented in barrique, 10% of it was new oak. Ageing took 6 months, also in the barrels. A full-bodied wine abundant in aromas and flavours, with long ageing potential. Ideal partner of fish dishes, cured ham and cheeses.

More about Thummerer Winery
The BWT info sheet of the wine

Holdvölgy Hold and Hollo Dry 2024, Tokaj

Holdvölgy estate makes outstanding Tokaji Aszú wines and stunning dry wines, but they also have a playful range, the Hold and Hollo wines along with Uppp aerated sparkling wine.. “A cool and bold Tokaji that offers a fresh interpretation of the Tokaj tradition. It’s all about pleasure—no mysteries! This stylish partner is ready for all your adventures, but only if you have enough bottles…” The wine is a blend of Furmint, Hárslevelű, Zéta and Muscat à petits grains. “Hold and Hollo Dry is all about freshness. The nose is full of exotic fruits like mango, coconut, and pink grapefruit. The sip is quite vibrant with a blend of maracuja, papaya, lime, and citrus. No mystery, just pleasure.”

More about Holdvölgy
The BWT info sheet of the wine

Tóth Ferenc Rhine Riesling Superior 2024, Eger

The family winery focuses on indigenous grapes like, but Rhine Riesling also works very well at the estate, as it has been proved through several vintages. “With its golden colour, the wine has a mature character in its appearance. The nose is rich and worth allowing to open up, as it gradually sheds tropical fruit-pineapple, lime-ginger mottled, baked pear notes. If you wait, even a hint of linden blossom and even popcorn will come through. Creamy on the palate. Toasty notes, toasted almonds and buttery character reflect the careful use of oak, as the wine’s acidity also comes through and leads the citrus flavours nicely. This fruit tends to dominate on the medium-long finish. A complex yet light wine.”

More about Tóth Ferenc Winery
The BWT info sheet of the wine

Villa Sandahl Ball of Fame Rhine Riesling 2017

While most white wines are consumed young, the queen of white grapes, Rhine Riesling should age to reach her peak. Ageing gracefully results in complexity and richness combined with elegance. This is why Villa Sandahl does not rush to the market, vintage 2017 is still on sale, though it is their „senior” wine on the shelf now.

Three consecutive miraculous years

Villa Sandahl is a peculiar estate in many ways, one specialty is that they have a different set of labels every year, and always there is an inspiration. In 2017 it was magic, because, as they say „this is the third year in a row that we produce very high quality” – it is a kind of magic… And what is the ball here? „The Sandahl ball has many times been a symbol for how Villa Sandahl see itself as located out of the box. Now a magician has taken over the ball to illustrate our best wine from 2017.” Indeed, the Sandahls are out of the box not only with their ever-changing labels, but with their focus on one single grape, namely the Rhine Riesling. We can confidently say that Villa Sandahl is the only winery (with significant presence on the market) with wines made of only one grape variety. If you check the website of the winery, you will see that even one single grape can offer countless opportunities depending on the vineyard, the date of harvest, and also the fraction of the must to be used.

How it evolves with time

The data sheets of Villa Sandahl wines are gold mines for students of wine: they detail not only the dates and characteristics of the harvest or the analytics, but they also contain tasting notes written by the owner, Christer Sandahl, at different times. According to the first tasting (January 2019) the wine has fantastic silky character, very balanced and it „is surprisingly open to be our highest quality, which normally use to be closed and shy at this point of time.” In 2021, according to Christer Sandahl it is already a „grown up”, and „surprisingly well developed (even with our own standard), clean, open, nice, well-made, refreshing, all such attractive characteristics”. And now? „Full and creamy sip, long finish, petrol, citrus, quince with honey, dried peach.”

See the whole, detailed data sheet here

More about Villa Sandahl

Villa Sandahl wines are available in several countries, first of all (after Hungary) in Sweden, due to the nationality of the owner. At Systembolaget a wide range of Villa Sandahl wines are available. If you are interested in importing these top-quality, terroir driven wines, contact the team.

The success of another 2017 vintage Villa Sandahl wine

Rabbit Periscope Rhine Riesling – the Winewriters’ choice

Sandahl Rezidencia – the perfect escape

“Sandahl Rezidencia” is a 4-room guest house, which is located in the central building of the Sandahl Promo house in the “Genesis” vineyard. Surrounded by fabulous and peaceful environment, visitors are guaranteed to be recharged. The house offers the most beautiful panorama of Badacsony, one of the most picturesque slices of the Lake Balaton landscape. The rooms and furniture are of typical Scandinavia design, appreciated in whole Europe. The place is really a sought-after guest house, thus it is advised to book well ahead.
More information 

Siklós: part of Villány, yet different

Wine of the Month, Best White of Villány – several prizes, titles went to the different vintages of Heumann Rhine Riesling in the past. The recent vintage, 2022 has proved its merits again: Vince Magazine, the leading consumer print magazine has selected Heumann Rhine Riesling 2022 the best white wine in a recent issue.
(Our cover photo features vintage 2021, but the recent vintage is 2022.)

 

Heumann Winery is a family-owned artisanal estate founded in the late 1990s by the Swiss-German couple Evelyne and Erhard Heumann and gradually built up since then. Their vineyards are in Siklós within Villány wine region, this is why they are able to produce stunning Rhine Riesling wines years by years. As Erhard Heumann commented, “Siklós towards the west has a slightly cooler climate and, in my opinion the most important aspect is that here there is a thinner layer of loess on the limestone rock, compared to Villány. It gives our wines a great minerality and a slightly higher acidity. Different terroir!”

Vince Magazine panel about the wine

“Medium intense lemon colour with greenish hue. Intense nose showing some development from the bottle ageing. Pronounced citrus notes with green apple and some petrol hints. Fairly full in the mouth with citrusy flavours. Lively, slightly tart wine with racing acidity and quite long aftertaste.”
The wine is only 4600 HUF / 12 EUR on the winery’s webshop (if you are staying in Hungary)

More about Heumann Winery

Heumann wines are available in several countries, for example in the United Kingdom at Wanderlustwine and Novel Wine. In Belgium at QWine, in Switzerland at Heumann Weine, Le Bouchon Vinothek and at Vinebration.

Heumann Winery is great at Rhine Riesling, but the main focus is on red wines.

Heumann Merlot – a wine to keep or enjoy now

Enjoy this true spring wine at Sandahl Residence

This estate is not only passionate, rather maniac about Rhine Riesling. They believe that this noble variety has found great foundation in the volcanic soiled wine region on the north shore of Lake Balaton. The wines are gorgeous, elegant and complex, and the winery has a guest house with stunning view of the lake. A must-go place, especially in spring time, before the region is flooded by tourists.

Paradise for wine geeks

If you think that only one single grape variety makes a boring range, you are mistaken. Villa Sandahl uses different fractions of the must for their different range wines, plus the date of the harvest, the length of ageing in the bottle – all taken into consideration. What is more, all this immense amount of information is given on the website, wine geeks can deep dive into all these details.

On top of that Villa Sandahl is full of stories, and these stories are grouped according to vintages. Every vintage has a different label theme: for example, vintage 2017 is about magic. As they say: “This is the third year in a row we produce very high quality and consequently the feeling begin to get magic”. Vintage 2018 features traffic signs and vintage 2019 is all about birds. The star of our cover photo is called Starling Village, named after the hungry thieves of the vineyards.

“Hungry starlings longing for grapes always swarm above our vineyards in the autumn, to get full before moving to Africa. This vintage was extremely sunny and rain-free, so the birds refused to leave as long as we had unpicked grapes. The label theme then was decided to be “birds”. Starlings are very social and flock oriented, thus like to settle in a village of bird boxes.”
See the peculiarly detailed fact sheet of Starling Village Rhine Riesling 2019

A wide range of Villa Sandahl wines are available in Sweden at Systembolaget. Villa Sandahl wines are also available at Winelovers Webshop, they ship to every European country. In case you are interested in importing Villa Sandahl wines, contact the estate manager and winemaker, Zsolt Palkó.

Oh Deer 2018 by Villa Sandahl

Say goodbye to the summer with one of the best Rieslings of Hungary – and also it is time to book a room at Villa Sandahl estate in Badacsony. The winery has a guest house with astonishing view of Lake Balatonand the soul healing vineyards around. And on top of that, guests can enjoy magnificent, juicy, unforgettable Rhine Rieslings.
Villa Sandahl Oh Deer was selected among Super 12, the best white wines by the Circle of Hungarian Winewriters earlier this year, and now Oh Deer won gold medal at the 2nd Winelovers Wine Awards international wine contest.

 

A unique concept – new topic in each vintage

Villa Sandahl has a unique concept: each vintage has a different topic on the labels, thus the names are different also. Some say that it does not help the distributors, since by the time the customers learn the name of the wine, a new vintage comes with different names. It is true, however, with this concept, customers don’t have to memorize vintages. If it is Oh Deer, it can come only from 2018 – plus Rhine Rieslings have long ageing potential, so Oh Deer lovers can enjoy the wines now and also for a long time.
Oh Deer is the No1 wine of the estate from vintage 2018. From this vintage the top category wines of the estate are provided with a black capsule with golden letters of ‘SANDAHL’. The labels are designed by one of the owners, Christer Sandahl. Each label of vintage 2018 depicts a road sign. On the label of Oh Deer we can see the Swiss Matterhorn mountain and a road sign. Why? Here comes the explanation of Christer Sandahl: “Because of being upset when warned for a falling deer.” (On the cover photo the label inspiring mountain is featured along with the wine.)

More about Villa Sandahl Oh Deer

 

Don’t make a mistake, stay longer…

Sandahl Rezidencia is a small guest house with 4 rooms, altogether for 10 people. As one guest commented after his stay: “Spotless clean place, amazing view, top quality wine, delicious breakfast and wonderful atmosphere. My stay was tos short:(“.

You can find Villa Sandahl on Booking.com

Villa Sandahl website

12th edition, New York Café

36 wineries await lovers of volcanic wines at the 12th edition of “Badacsony in New York”. The location is the prestigious, historic café house called New York in the heart of Budapest, in 5 star Anantara New York Palace Budapest Hotel.

Date and time: 22 April (Saturday), 13.00–15.00 (for professionals), 15.00–20.00 (for consumers)
Venue: New York Palace, ‘Róma’ hall, 1073 Budapest, Erzsébet körút 9., Hungary
Tickets (in Hungarian, but google can help) 
More info and full list of exhibitors

If you are a professional, you can visit the event free of charge, but registration is needed and it is a subject of availability. If you are interested, send your short bio here.

Borbély Family Winery and Villa Sandahl

Let us introduce two wineries from Badacsony wine region, from our cover photo. They are different in many ways: Borbély family focuses on local grapes like Kéknyelű and Olaszrizling while Villa Sandahl concentrates on one single variety: Rhine Riesling. They have proved that this noble variety can give amazing wines on the volcanic slopes of Badacsony mountain. Tamás Borbély, the youngest Winemaker of the Year ever believes in local grapes, they make several different wines of Olaszrizling, the most important wine of Lake Balaton. They also put special emphasis on Kéknyelű, a unique and interesting grape grown almost exclusively in Badacsony wine region. Borbély is a family with local roots while Villa Sandahl owners are from Sweden, who fell in love with the beauty and the potential of Badacsony. What is common is the devotion to Badacsony and quality wines.

More about Borbély Family Winery

More about Villa Sandahl

Villa Sandahl – a top Riesling producer from volcanic Badacsony

Did you know that today is the “birthday of Rhine Riesling”? The first document mentioning Rhine Riesling dates back to 13 March 1435. And did you know that there is a wine estate in Hungary that makes wines exclusively of Rhine Riesling grapes? It is called Villa Sandahl, let us cheers to them and to this gorgeous grape variety!

More about Villa Sandahl Not Yet Rhine Riesling 2018 (in the photo above) 
Villa Sandahl website
Meet Villa Sandahl at ProWein!

Some interesting facts about Villa Sandahl

Believe the sommeliers – drink Villa Sandahl!

Rabbit Periscope Rhine Riesling – the Winewriters’ choice

A crazy good idea: why to buy a more expensive wine

Saved from hungry sterlings

Croatian Hilton star chef loves Hungarian artisan wines

Villa Sandahl

Vince wine magazine has announced its nominees for Vince Award. The award debuted last year, and this year again renowned wine experts put together 3 nominees in each category. The voting period lasts until 31st October. The award winning wines will be available for tasting at Vince Gála on 19 November in Budapest at one of the most spectatular venues, at the Museum of Fine Arts at Heroe’s Square. There are several great wines among the nominees, let us introduce 3 of them.

 

Vote here (In Hungarian, but google can help, plus wine styles and names are easy to understand.)

Vince Gála tasting event
Date and time: 15.00–22.00, 19 November 2022
Venue: Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary
Tickets from 6700 HUF / person
Early bird ticket with unlimited tasting: 12 500 HUF
Buy tickets here