Hegymagas, Hungary
The wines of István Bencze (of Bencze Birtok) showed up on my radar when B. and I had a glass of his outstanding Cabernet Sauvignon a couple years ago at Drop Shop, the wine bar & caviste in Budapest, an excellent venue dealing with artisan & organic wines of the region and beyond. This was a superb wine, intense and with thin, refined tannins, certainly something hard to do in these latitudes (Special thanks to Bálint who tipped me about this wine). The domaine is farmed on biodynamy, vinifies its wines naturally and can be counted as
possibly the only one today in Hungary eschewing both SO2 and filtration, a last step that natural-wine producers are
often reluctant to do.
I visited István Bencze a few weeks ago on the volcanic slopes of Hegymagas in view of the lake Balaton and here is his story in a few words. I had settled my tent in a nice little campground in Taliándörögd (Central Transdanubia) a few kilometers away and was driving the back roads like i like to do.
István didn't have originally a wine-related background, he was a software developper, studied computer sciences, getting a university degree in mathematics in Debrecen (eastern Hungary). István started his own IT company then, which thrived and grew, he was working routinely 12 to 14 hours a day then, and he enjoyed it. Back when he was a child he had had a strong connection with the country life because he helped his grandmother do all kind of things in her vegetable garden near Debrecen; there was even 4 or 5 rows of vines to tend and every year they'd pick the grapes with relatives from which they'd make jam, eat the grapes right away and make a bit of wine as well. This was a blue kind of grape, Kékmedoc or Medoc Noir, a Hungarian hybrid and he'd help to prune the vines every spring in years around 1998 (he's 37 now), that's when he kind of learnt the basics of vine tending. Later when he was in his early 20s' he even tried to make wine once, it turned faulty but that's his first youth experience in the matter.
When he was about 30 he began to think about what he really wanted to do in life and that's when his connection to nature bounced back, he didn't see himself on a computer forever, he was beginning to get bored with this IT life, every project was the same and there was not the excitement anymore, and he went to Florence, Italy with his then-girlfriend who wanted to study interior design there (around 2009-2010), working himself from there on his computer for his Budapest-based business. He was thrilled by the lifestyle there, studied Italian which allowed him to talk on the market and elsewhere, and all the while enjoying the wines there as well as the cheeses, coffee and mushrooms and other edibles not found in Hungary. Buying and tasting wines, visiting occasionally wineries, his interest in wines grew and when he came back to Budapest he realized that he was visiting more tasting events there than IT conferences, he remembers beginning to talk about the issue with his father who was still in Debrecen. His father was initially more a beer drinker but had moved on with wines even if he'd buy commercial wines then. At the time Istvan was focusing more and more on artisan wines, he'd find them at the time at Drop Shop and also Bortársaság (an online portal) or even regular supermarkets which had such wines then. He and his parents also had occasionally the opportunity to drink an old vintage wine from here, sourced through a friend winemaker, Endre Szászi of Szaszi Birtok which was so good and exciting.
István was beginning to look for a small surface to try his hand back then, he was initially thinking about buying a parcel in Tokaj or in Somlo but after tasting this wine he came here near the Balaton and found a small plot. While here near Hegymagas he really felt that was the place, he felt deep in himself that he has something to do here, it was really a turning point because before that day he was still not sure this was to be his life path. So he first bought a small parcel of vineyard (that was in 2011) making only 0,3 hectare, complanted with many different varieties. More were to
come later. For his first vintage (2012) he made two whites from the small complanted parcel, a Riesling and another white with the other white varieties. He vinified in the
facility of his neighbor Endre Szászi, who did the vinification in his own way. István says he didn't have the skills then to vinify himself, he read many things about winemaking and there's one thing he was sure, he wanted to make wines with personality, with their own character, he had realized that he didn't like the conventional, standardized wines found on the market; he didn't know where it came from, not being familiar with the issues of lab yeast, indigenous yeast, nutrients, filtration and the rest, he just felt which wines he liked from the many he got from Hungary, France, Italy, Slovenia and elsewhere. he was already sure back then that he'd farm organic because it was very important for him not to add pollution in the soil and nature.
István renovated in 2013 this house which was built in 1807, the domaine also receives guests with rooms overlooking the dead volcanoes and has a wine bar (Murci - drone view on left) with a beautiful terrace from which you see the Balaton as well all the while siping natural wines from here and elsewhere. The region has always had lots of visitors from both Hungary and abroad; Hungary has no sea access of its own since the Trianon partition deprived it from 2/3 of its territory and the Balaton has become kind of the summer Riviera here. During the iron curtain era (the communist rule) the lake was a favorite destination for East-Germans who lived in the GDR, the region offered a weather that was comparatively more southern (I'd say almost Provencal in many ways) and Hungary was certainly more open and relaxed than the DDR. Even today, East-Germans keep visiting and/or even buy second homes in the area.
The first wine in 2012, the Riesling, turned out very nice, the vintage had been hot and dry. His first vintage was from a total surface of 1 hectare as they found additionnal surface (also complanted but with several training types, bush, cordon, trellis) during the winter. He made some 1400 bottles that first year, which it took time to sell because he wasn't known to buyers). this first wine was vinified on indigenous yeast and for the rest like people do in the area, the grapes were destemmed, crushed and pressed quickly (usually finished under an hour), fermentation took place at 16 C (temp control), SO2 is usually added after the fermentation in an order of 50-60 mg per liter, with the goal to prevent malolactic. István did like everyone for this first vintage because he wasn't trained yet but at the time for his first vintage he hadn't much choice. The wine was racked after the fermentation and aged on its fine lees; there was fining and filtering before bottling, in the area they use bentonite and PVPP, and another 60 mg SO2.So in the end wine you have 30 to 40 mg SO2 free SO2 and total SO2 is around 100. While he was soon to vinify along a completely different style and philosophy, this early experience allowed István to have tried both ways, and this first wine was pretty successful and the wild-yeast gave the wine its own personality, you could feel the terroir even if the wine had a very classic style. Endre asked him if he wanted some oak aging and István said yes, in old 400-liter barrels.
Then István moved here from Budapest in january 2013 after he found an old house which he renovated; at the beginning he lived alone on this slope (he was single then) but after the moisy life of Budapest it was a very strange and exciting experience, the noises of nature and clear skies in the night.
Here on the left Istvan has some Furmint and also some Harslevelu as well as Rheinrizling (his main variety now) and Kéknyelű (possibly his main variety in thez future) . The Lengyel Kapolna or Polish chapel on the picture is an iconic monument here, it was built by a rich family back then in 1760, that's where István had his wedding last year.
Having tasted many biodynamic wines he was thrilled by them and on the other hand as a mathematician the biodyb=namic approach and process seemed odd and hard to understand, but he kept reading about it and got the thing that many things in nature are beyond our understanding, he visited biodynamic domaines in Champagne, also went to Slovenia to visit Aci Urbajs who makes beautiful wines without sulfites and had him understand how biodynamics works. He then joined a Hungarian biodynamic group where many people are from the older generation of vegetable growers (that's near Budapest), it was still very interesting and he learned a lot, reading more books on the issue including Steiner's. He got the products both from the group and from a remote farm completewith cows and other farm animals. Endly last year he began to make his own products, something he considers very important when you farm biodynamic, and he got a lot of help from Mihaly Mezei who is the president of this group and founder of Biokultura, he helped him about the compost preparation for exemple and he is an advisor with the Demeter certification agency in Hungary.
Today Istvan feels that the vineyard has evolved very positively after these few years of biodynamic farming (organic from 2012, biodynamic from 2014), especially beginning in 2018 he could see a nice change in the lower pH of the grape, the early ripening and the yields of 1 kg per vine were fine. Now they can harvest Rhein Riesling with full phenolic ripeness in early september with high acidity and low alcohol, like near 12 %, and they let the wine go though its malolactic. In the beginning it wouldn't have been possible because they had a big amount of malic acid and you loose most of the acidity. Biodynamic farming really makes a difference here, and after a few years. He's the only one to farm biodynamic in the area but some people are beginning to think about it, but usually they first consider the basic organic farming, the convincing argument being that they see Istvan has fruit on his vines even without using chemicals. They also realize that with the conventional farming the juice is weak and they have to intervene during the vinification to correct the wine. When they taste the two types of berries they see the difference at tart stage too. The problem is many potential converting growers are afraid they'll not be able to stay afloat with their cashflow during the pivotal years of the challenging conversion, because the vineyard will need time to rebound.
We drove to a 7-hectare block of different parcels with different varieties, much of this surface he got from Huba Szeremley (actually from his son). I happened to have met Huba Szeremley years ago after work, he is a very interesting person who was kind of a pioneer in his time, he also planted a parcel of Bakator which is very precious for Istvan.
Speaking of the nearest people to turn to, he can ask Zsolt Sütó of Strekov (in Slovakia) and a few other growers, including in Italy and France. In France he feels lucky to have the chance to go every year to the Dive in Angers in february and speak with these vignerons, he had brought a few samples there of his production, and hopefully he may participate to the event soon. He visits also the vignerons in their farm, like in Jura Julien Labet, and last year he also visited Julie Balagny when she had just finished the harvest, she had a party with all the pickers and it was terrific. He also visits London twice a year, goes to Real Wine. RAW is a bit too extreme he thinks, he aims for wines that are natural but without volatile for example, without faults, his models would be JUlien Labet, RIchard leroy, Julie Balagny for example.
On the pic above you can see old, communist-era vines (planted in 1976) which he converted to posts from trellis, taking down the wires and lowering the height of the vine trunk by cutting it down, the concept here being to get the grapes closer to the ground and add more yeast character on the berries, more bacteria to add more life in the juice. He brings a branch of the vine up and then down on a circle for that purpose. This is a traditional way used in Transylvania, between the bush and the Guyot. Speaking of the soil natre there's a lot of basalt and also sandstone underneath as well as clay and some limestone. He says he loves this place, and there's always a healthy wind here on the backbone of the hill. You see here that the inter-row was plowed, that's because he's going to add another row inbetween with the aim to raise step by step the density closer to 9000 or 10 000; the width was designed originally for soviet tractors and 3,6 meter is too wide, it's enough to put another row with just 1,1 or 1,2 meter between them and it's fine because he doesn't plan to use a tractor. In 5 years or so he plans to use horses here if needed. He plans to make a cuvée with all his varieties vinified together, like Courtois' Racines.
The total vineyard surface of the winery grew steadily from year to year, reaching today 2O hectares, something Istvan considers too big even though not all is planted. There are 14 hectares in production and even such a surface is too big to tend and farm, but sqomehow they manage to do it with 7 full-time workers (they started with two), men and women who make a very good, stable team. They also work with seasonnal workers, ladies who happen to be ethnic Swabians (German speaking), they do a very good, precise job in the vineyard, like for the canopy management, debudding and picking, they also help for the hand bottling, which István started in 2018 (instead of using a bottling line) because wines without sulfites need a very smooth and careful bottling. Speaking of sulfites in 2017 he still had 50 % of the production with a bit of added sulfites at bottling but in 2018 everything was without SO2, he felt he had to after visiting Tscheppe, Werlitsch and a few others in Austria and after this trip he couldn't stand his own older wines where he had added some SO2, so in november 2017 his choice was clear, he wouldn't use any, except in case of real risk and then he's tell about it. there's a wine bar here at the winery (with view over the volcanoes & the balaton) and istvan can pour to the visitors the same cuvées with- and without sulfites so that they feel the difference; he keeps bottling a small batch with sulfites (50 to 80 bottles each time) just for that purpose and I think it's very good and educational for wine lovers to compare. He says Hungarians are not familiar with wines without sulfites and he can help in this regard. But he adds that commercial wines and wineries try to use the word nature on some of their cuvées, thus misleading the public, that's not fair. To help the Hungarians know this type of wines, Istvan set up a small import company anf imports a few cases of Julie Balagny, Domaine de L'Ecu and a few others, he had a few good restaurants buy these bottles after he had them taste the wines, it's very encouraging.
Here on the pic above is a part of this 1976 parcel where he kept the wires and trellis system so that he can compare the two ways.
At one point along the narrow road on the slope we spotted this young fox near a house partly hidden with trees, my own reflex would have been in France to reach for my gun (kidding) but I learnt this fox has been tamed by the owner of the house (a friend of István) who feeds it every day, and it was probably dropping there to see what was on the menu. Near where we saw the fox there was an old fountain (built in 1901) from which István takes the water when he makes biodynamic press, it keep flowing even in these drought months of summer.
There's a problem on these slopes, it's that some people want to build vacation houses although it's prime land for viticulture, normally you can only do it if you plant vines but it's not enforced, people usually do the trick of planting a couple of rows for the show to the local administration and pull up the whole a few months later when they build the house. István decided to use a village house in the village in spite of having the right to build his facility on these slopes, because he felt bad to trash the place with one more construction.
Other parcel, István plans to plant fruit trees here and there. We pass also big walls he built without cement, there were a few lavenders there and you could hear the cicadas all around, making the whole place feel very much like Provence. There's potassium here in the soil and the down side is it makes pH higher which is not so good, but with the right biodynamic preps i understand you can lower it.
At one point we saw a parcel where István has both Pinot Noir and cabernet Sauvignon, which he aknowledges is odd as you can't have a terroir that fits both. The parcel was planted by Huba Szeremey and in that time in Hungary people were rushing to follow Tibor Gál who was advocating for it although it is now understood it"s controversial. István keeps the parcel and experiments with it.
István shares the philosophy of Franz Weninger for the weeds management in the sens that he keeps low type of weeds with fatty leaves that keep to the ground, this results in more fatty wines, and if you have rye, that goes up and become dry it will yield more reduction in the wines because the juice will have less nutrients for the yeast. He says that some people don't like. reduction but he loves it
Later we stopped at a parcel with Kek Bakator, the vines and canopy stand very tall, they were planted a few decades ago. István says the berries of this variety are big and loose on the clusters, he bought this vineyard in 2012 from Huba and the wood comes from the Research Institute of Viticulture & Enology in Pecs, the only thing is that it was not the best place to plant it because it's a late-ripening variety and it gets harmed by the humidity from the lower slopes, plus the first frost can strike early on this location. But he started to make white with this blue grape (a Blanc de Noir) because it has very high acidity with very high tartaric acid and very low malic acid, his 2015 already vinified as white have a nice expression of terroir, he vinifies it in amphora. He plans to plant more of it near the Kadarka and make a light red on the style of Jura's Poulsard (he's been already selecting the wood for the massal replanting). As far as he knows there's no other parcel of Kek Bakator in Hungary or even the neighboring countries.
Speaking of the use of copper(which is allowed for organic farming), István reduced willingly its volume, going down to as little as 1,2 kg per hectare/year on the lower-slope parcels and between 0,5 and 0,8 kg ha/y on the upper slopes which always need less because they're out of reach of the humidity coming from the lake. He also occasionally use raw milk for the spray, as well as whey. For the downy mildew they use oak bark tea and horsetail.
The young vines that are a bit higher on the left are Olaszrizling also called Welschriesling, a clone from Croatia through Gabor Karner in Matra.
Istvan vinified from the start with indigenous yeast, the vinification has always been natural and since 2018 he's eschewing totally SO2, a last step which makes his wines really alive. The wines can be turbid because they're unfiltered and there's a need to teach the public about it.
The inside of the winery was pretty packed, with the press (a German-made Scharfenberger)stuck in the middle of these pallets of bottles. Istvan says that at the beginning he'd buy lots of tools and high-tech machinery but now he tends to sell many of them because he
doesn't need them really, like a pump, a distiller and other stuff. He realized the use of pumps takes out
much of the energy of the wine, so in 2018 they used only gravity and bought a forklift instead for that purpose. he got one of these nice and expensive peristaltic pumps but he is looking to sell it, he doesn't need it anymore. there's a destemmer he uses sometimes but never the crushing part of the tool, if nedded he does the crushing by foot, it's softer.
There's a stirrer for the biodynamic preps, he got it from France. Before 2018 he did all this stirring by hand but with the surface that makes a lot of work, and he spoke with Ewald Tscheppe in Styria who told him that the fact to do it by hand or with a machine didn't interfere with the energy of the preparation, so it was better to preserve one's own forces and let a machine do it, especially that for his 20-hectare surface that would be a lot of physical work.they still keep doing some stirring by hand on the side in a small vessel and blend the two volumes before spraying, like I've seen it done in the Loire. To spray these preps he uses the back sprayers (pic on right).
Here is this Austrian foudre made by Schneckenleitner, Istvan says it's a little bit cheaper than Stockinger but the quality is almost the same, a very good vessel made with oak that has been aged 10 years. In there he ages Pinot, the special cuvée named Atlas which he started in 2018. This was a short élevage though and the cuvée is now bottled.
Istvan uses a wide range of amphora types, some being made in the south of France by the way, see these ones on the right which were stored outside, I think i saw the same types at Laurent Saillard, they have a very unusual shape with a narrow opening, far from the Georgian models, he only uses them for the juice of course, not for the skin contact. I think they're made by a guy named Olivier Beliveau near Castelnaudary.
We walk in the main room for the amphorae, many different models here, some which have a capacity of 750 liters come from northern Italy (Tava). Others that look like eggs also come from northern Italy from another company located in savona. Others with handles on the sides are from Attila Légli and are made in Hungary, it's a new company started in 2014. There are other amphorae here which are also made by Olivier Beliveau, they have a larger opening than his other models (grapes can get in) and they are glazed inside which gives less oxigenation, he's put Chenin there to get a Flor wine like the Jura's Vin Jaune. Istvan loves the Hungarian Szamorodni and he'd like to combine this style with a Chenin by blending the amphora with a topped-up barrel.
__ Kéknyelű 2018, from a large amphora, this is István's first vintage of it, this is from young vines planted in 2016 and 2017. Unfortunately there's a little bit of volatile here, he says. Was vinified with hand-picked grapes, whole-bunch pressing, sometimes he jumpes in the press to stomp with the feet at the beginning when they're loading the press. some extraction but not too much, this way. the pressing is very sophisticated and soft, they try not to stir or move around the whole-clustered grapes, they only push one way. They don't go to high pressure, they just wait that the juice drops, prss again and so forth, this is very slow like 4 hours and all the while they taste the juice. They may fraction the juice also, having the more turbid part gor for anight to sediment in a cool tank while the clear part goes to the fermenter. The Kéknyelű has a higher pH and also the type of soil (potassium) pushes for higher pH and at the end there's often more volatile, so for this 1st vintage of Kéknyelű he'll probably not put it on the market (although he likes it this way) and keep it in stainless and blend it with the juice of next year to finish the residual sugar and take away the volatile naturally. The wine looks a little turbid, the color is kind of greenish. Nice mouthfeel, generous, he says there's something like 4 grams of residual sugar.
__ Rhein Riesling 2018, from young vines planted in 2015. Also a bit turbid with green reflections. No stirring, no batonnage, he doesn't do that usually. He doesn't move the wine, he lets the malolactic unfold, usually in autumn, it sometimes finishes in spring, and he thinks it will stabilize before the harvest. I feel some tickling on the tongue, very enjoyable, gentle feel. Istvan says it could be bottled in august, he likes it this way. the problem is that the wine authorities that deliver the permits to put wines on the market don't understand these kind of wines. He will not sell it under an Appellation because he'd be forced to filter and fine the wine, so it's a bit tricky each time. He works and fights to have this type of natural, unfiltered wines recognized by the wine authorities, both in this region and in Budapest.
__ Rhein Riesling old vines 2018. More depth, very nice indeed, pure and neat with energy and acidity. Istvan plans to bottle it next year, keeping it one more year for aging. He'll not use a Riesling-type of bottle because for him this wine is not about the variety but about the terroir it shows, this will be a Burgundy-shaped bottle. He has this wine in both amphora and barrel but he will bottle each separately because he considers every racking is a risk to loose something in terms of energy and personnality; he'll tell on the label from which vessel it comes.
__ Same wine from another Tava amphora just to see if it evolved differently. Maybe a bit more turbid, samely beautiful energy with a wholeness feel, love it. He says he hopes to be able to complete the 2nd year of élevage but may have to bottle earlier, he'll see. Asked if he uses sulfur wicks in the empty amphora when the wine is bottled, Istvan says he just brings it to the sun light and the UV kills all the bacteria, he uses also hot steam to get the inside clean and then just dries it.
__ Chenin 2018, same vinification style, whole bunch pressing but in a barrel (imported from Burgundy), he plans to bottle this cuvée in august, the vines wre planted in 2014. Richness feel but probably dry, Istvan says he hasn't brought a sample to the lab to know.
__ Chenin 2018, from an amphora with a metal cap, the juice comes from the same press but as an experiment he added whole berries as well (even whole-custer grapes, half of each, the two soaking for two weeks. Istvan says he loves the wines of Daniel Sage who also does this type of vinification. He's checking this one out, looking for possible mousiness, but I didn't feel anything particular in this regard. In case it happens he says wait is a better option than adding SO2, it's been observed that adding SO2 would kill life and you'd still have the mousiness problem. Istvan says he'll use large capacity barrels like Richard Leroy does, not that he wants to do the same wines but he appreciates his wines a lot and wants to explore; he visited Richard Leroy last february but was too shy to bring his own bottles, too bad because Richard asked him if he had any samples to taste, this visit was so interesting for him, he tasted 12 or 14 different wines there.
__ Aries 2017, Rhein Riesling, from the same parcel, vinified in a 400-liter egg-shaped amphora. Istvan has been vinified it from 2013 but this 2017 is the first to be fully natural, without sulfites. Has been fermenting since autumn 2017 and through 2018. From what I understand the malolactic took place at one point and now the remaining sugar is getting eaten little by little. 6 grams of residual sugar at this stage. Lovely. He hopes to be able to bottle it in september. He has been reactivating the fermentation by re-oxygenating it and bringing up some yeast that were lying at the bottom, but the cellar is possibly too clod here, that could be the reason why it's sluggish.
__ Rózsakő 2018, from a 500-liter Hungarian barrel the name sounds funny from a French perspective, sounds like "Rouge à Queue", i thought initially it spelled this way. According to this page about Hungarian varieties (mid-scroll) it's a cross between Kéknyelű and Budai Zöld. The grapes were picked september 13. The cooperage
here is Kadar, Istvan finds these barrels a bit too rustic, this may have to do with the type of roasting. Very interesting color. One third is a carbonic maceration like in Beaujolais made in an open-top fermenter with CO2 and lid for 3 weeks, after which they blended the two juices (the direct press having already well advanced it fermentation). Lovely nose, with ananas and other exotic fruits. Alcohol is also very low, like 11,8 %. Very nice wine indeed, rich at the same time very alive and good acidity. He thought he'd blend the barrel with something else but he'll see, he likes this wine like it is.
__ Hárslevelű 2018, from a small egg-shaped amphora. very turbid. This is an experiment, Istvan says, full carbonic maceration (whole bunches with the stems) under CO2 protection for 3 weeks, they just did a bit of remontage with taking some juice from the bottom. Very nice wine, it's the first time he tries this, he says the acidity is a bit low from what he tasted over time (he didn't check through the lab), so he'll blend this wine with some Furmint. But as the turbidity recedes and the wines gets clearer the acidity feel may get better, so he'll see with time. I like the tannin feel here and the bitterness extra something, lovely white.
He has other ideas for next time, he may add a third of whole-clustered grapes floating in the juice, pressing them separately and reblending total or partly which brings complexity.
We then went back to the wine bar along the slope to taste from a few bottles, beginning with this rare forgotten-variety wine. We had great things to eat with the wine, baked by a young woman who opened her bakery in Kisapáti (a village nearby) at about the same time István started to make wine here.
__ Kek 2017,
the name of the cuvée is a hint from what's it's all about, as we're dealing here with a variety that is not officially on the country's vareity list (I see we have the same administrative issues here than in France), namely the Kek Bakator (you can't print the full name on the label today, hopefully that may change one day)... Very floral wine, István says that now it's more creamy compared when he opened the bottled the day before when it was reductive. 11,5 % alcohol, pH is 3,15, no added sulfites. The wine is easy drinking.Serving temperature was warmer than it should be but the wine showed beautifully nonetheless. Salty and mineral wine, Istvan says it's a serious wine that reflects the terroir and soil. He says that by experience he witnessed the wine change when you have sips of the same bottle along several consecutive days, like different facets of the same wine.Asked about the oddity that so few other winemakers in Hungary vinify without SOé, Istvan says there is another he knows about, it's Gábor Karner, and he felt it instantly when he had one of his SO2-free wines. I remember I loved several of his wines when I visited him a few years ago, he was certainly beginning to vinify without SO2 already. Istvan says that was prevents winemakers to go fill blown natural is that it's not easy to sell such wines in Hungary, and that's why he imports a few wines from abroad to show consumers through the restaurants how beautiful such wines are.
__ Talált Szőlő, Pinot Blanc 2018, parcel located near the Kek Bakator. Made only 60 bottles of this because of downy mildew in the flower season and other issues. Experiment with early bottling, and here also he put about 25 % of whole-clustered grapes floating in fermenting juice in amphora, no sulfites added. after it was bottled he opened a bottle some time later and he felt that it was like a disaster but the wine fell back by itself on its four feets since then and it now tastes good. The color itself has changed from the bottling time, in the early days it was like a rosé, and that's because of the autolysis of the lees that yield a reductive environment in the wine. Enjoyable wine indeed, nice balance with this little-something related to the white tannins coming from the skin contact, there's lots of character in this white.
__ Pinot 2018, bottled one month and a half before this visit. Vines of Pinot located in the lower slope. From 2018 he decided to eschew the use of SO2 on all his cuvées both whites and red except when an urgency happens, and this here is the only cuvée where he did choose to add a little of SO2, 10 mg before bottling because he felt a bit of mousiness. Very tender, light color, nice exciting light turbidity. Vinified in open-top fermenters, using only feet and hands for pushing down the cap. He added to this entry-level Pinot the part of Atlas he didn't like enough to be part of Atlas (the upper-cuvée Pinot). The nose here is very delicate, mouth-swallowing is lovely, juicy, harmonious and alive (and it was only bottled 6 weeks before !). 11,5 % alcohol. Frankly the feel of this wine is like there was no SO2 at all, amazing. István says that Julie Balagny kind of inspired him to make this cuvée. He had this wine tasted in a few restaurants in Budapest and they liked it but mainly the interested buyers for this wine are from Stockholm, London and Japan (the latter having visited here this spring). He made almost 5000 bottles and the Pro price (wholesale) will be 7 to 8 €.
__ Atlas 2018, Pinot Noir from the upper slope, 50 % Whole-bunch fermentation, the other 50 % being semi-carbonic, with one third of the grapes in the bottom being destemmed but not crushed, the middle part is whole clusters and the top third is destemmed whole berries, this is a good way to have low-temp fermentation, plus it's very easy to do the push-down by hand. He blends the whole thing in the foudre for a half-year élevage in there. Istvan says it's stil young. Wonderful color here also. Bottled by gravity early may. Some CO2 he says in there but I didn't feel any tickling. Istvan says it's still young and he keeps the bottles some time before releasing it. More tannins here but still, it's very refined and that bodes well for the way it will feel in a year or two.
István had put a bottle of his Pet'Nat made from Chenin in the freezer to disgorge it but alas we forgot about it while tasting the other wines and tasting, and the wine had begun to freeze, making it unfit for tasting in its normal condition; but I managed to shoot this picture of the bursting sediments... He began tro make some in 2017 with 130 bottles, selling all of them in London. This one here is his 2nd one, he wanted to make something more elegant but the pressure in the bottle is higher than planned. We stilled had a sip of it, the bubbles seemed very thin but he says rightly that the freezing has taken away much of the sparkling punch. May be a bit of residual sugar as well. He made 2000 bottles, he doesn't know yet when he'll sell it.
Before meeting Istvan I spotted a couple of vintage tractors in the village on the side of the road, and after looking closely I saw they were models made in the defunct Soviet Union, and the maker still exists today under the name of Belarus Minsk Tractors. One of them (this one above) was a Belarus MT3. They seemed in working condition even if there seemed to have been adaptive fixing.
Without a doubt, this is the most inspiring story I've read in the past year. To move into the life one wants seems to be more and more difficult for younger people and I'm extremely happy to see that this young man has done it. Lots of work for sure, I know! Many best wishes for continued success and prosperity. Thank you for sharing the story.
Posted by: Trish | August 19, 2019 at 05:22 AM
Loved reading this blog post. In Australia we don't get many Eastern European wines. Hopefully that changes in the future and we get to experience something new.
Posted by: Tom Sadler | August 20, 2019 at 07:52 AM