Gyöngyöspata, Mátra (Hungary)
The wine region of Mátra sits on the Mátra hills which, on the way from Budapest when you drive north east to Eger and Tokaj and it grows a majority of white varieties. Mátra is sitting on volcanic slopes as many of these hills were volcanoes I guess (see pic on left, sorry for the pylons in the foreground), and while the wine region keeps a low profile on the international scene (compared to Tokaj and Eger)
I was myself suprised to learn that it is the 2nd largest among the 22 wine regions of Hungary (#19 patch on the linked map). The deep history roots of this region shows up in the many cellars found in every village there, it's pretty easy to spot them because in Hungary cellars are often built just outside the villages and away from the farms (closer to the parcels I guess), with a tiny house sitting in front of the opening, this house being used a a chai, to store cellar tools & basket press, and of course gather with friends and family and drink wine....
Like I've seen in the Loire for example, there's a new generation of winemakers in Mátra bringing in their will to make wine for the love of wine and on small surfaces, they're often outsiders as opposed with the mainstream established who try to keep making commercial wine that kind of lost its connection to truth and terroir. People like András Kovács and his wife Kinga Tóth bring indeed a new life in here beginning with demanding requirements in the vineyard management that like elsewhere you don't often find on commercial wineries. András works in IT in Budapest (he's been also one of the wine writers at A Borrajongó, a rich resource on wine including of course Hungarian wine) and Kinga in urban engineering and they spend many weekends here in Mátra.
Andras & Kinga have parcels on two terroirs, one is Meggyes, thar's the one they had to work on this weekend, and the other is Bódics which is on a warmer exposition. You can see the terroirs on this Gyöngyöspata terroirs map sent to me by Andras. The Bódics parcel (red rectangle in the blue rectangle) is located east of the village and that's where they have their productive Kékfrankos. A bit further on the right you can see the Gereg terroir, which is considered the best of Gyöngyöspata (just say Pata like people here if you think it's too long a name).
The colder terroir of Meggyes (means sour cherry in, Hungarian) is in the orange rectanle on the left, it's the one where they worked on the young vines that weekend. Because in part to the different exposure, it's two week behind in terms of maturity window compared to Bódicsi and Gereg. For the anecdote, the lower part of Meggyes is named Úrráteszi which means "makes a lord", like if owning rows of vines there made you a lord in the past...
András made his first wine in 2018 when he got his first parcel (0,3 hectare) located on a slope with good ripening conditions, then the following year he found another parcel (0,6 hectare) on a colder terroir at higher altitude. Next year they'll plant another 0,6 hectare for a total of 1,5 hectare when the new plantations will be productive. Between the rows here they sowed covercrops like mustard and rye in sprin and autumn 2021 but the weather was very dry and it didn't really come out. Actually from may of last year to april this year there was basically no rain at all here.
The part of the parcel they're working on above was planted in 2018, they're taking down the leaves and buds on the lower part of the vine. the variety is Laska, an old, almost extinct local variety that orinitated in Austria but disappeared there while a few remaing vines can be found in Hungary. It was rediscovered by old-variety pioneer Jozsef Szentesi (a man I like to compare to Robert Plageoles, who did the same pioneer work in Gaillac). Andras of course got the wood from him. There are also a few rows of Kékfrankos (Blaufrankisch) which was a Szentesi/Balint Losonci selection from a 100-year old parcel in Szekszard (another wine region in Hungary).
When they replant, they do it with high density, like 2 meters between rows and 0,8 meter between vines, which makes a density of 6000 vines/hectare. The "old" parcels here in Hungary which are still used by commercial wineries often date from the communist era when they were planted with 3 meters or even more between rows, because soviet-made tractors (like the Belarus which were common here) were wide and not adapted to old-time parcels. And during the communist rule, small old-timer parcels on slopes were abandonned or left to the villagers for private production, and large vineyards were instead planted in the plains, on land unfit for good wine but that permitted industrial volumes.
This new planting above is half Kékfrankos and half Syrah, the Kékfrankos or Blaufränkisch comes from Triebaumer in Austria, it has small clusters and grapes with good concentration. He chose Syrah because he and Kinga like the northern-Rhône wines like Côte Rôtie. They didn't sow plants here on the new plantings because of the potential competition with the young vines. They tilled themselves under the row because you won't find workers to do that properly.
the soil seems light and almost sandy in the hand but Andras says that when it rains it gets sticky because that's mostly clay here. It's a type of clay that was made from decompsing volcanic soil. the leaves and shoots seem very healthy
these are the types of stones and minerals that resurface on these parcels, typical volcanic byproducts and very strange outlook and colors. They look as hard and sharp as silex or flint stones, some having tiny crystals, like quartz. One is red like meat, and with the white layer as well you might think that's pork shoulder.
On our way to the village we came across one of thos soviet-era tractors we were speaking about, probably a Belarus, the company still exists and makes tractors today in Minsk. Good to see that also here in Hungary farmers remain loyal to their old, self-proven machines...
That's when we drove to the cellar in Gyöngyöspata, you can see on this picture a typical village street lined with cellars. These streets are usually located outside the village along a slope where it'd be easier to dig horizontal cellar galleries into the hill. the "houses" were built later, hiding the cellar opening and providing just enough room to store winemaking tools including a small basket press. Oddly, while the socialist regime destroyed the artisanal winemaking culture by replacing it with industrial cooperatives in the plains, they somehow at the same time let the old-time ways to linger a few decades by allowing village families to keep a small parcel (as large as half an hectare) and make wine of it for their own consumption.
The keys for these cellar houses are often VERY big, and the reason is that this way, the men couldn't hide the key in their pocket and pretend they'd just walk around or see a neighbor, their wives would know immediately with the protruding key they're in fact heading to the cellar to drink wine there with friends...
Here is the single room of this tiny house, actually a chai where the pressing and vinification takes place on harvest days. It's not big but when you fold back the mobile floors on the left you get around 35 square meters (or 377 square feet) which is enough for their small surface especially given the picking time varies with the parcels. And in the future if this is too small they'll find a way, possibly by using another room elsewhere. Andras told me at one point that they're just amateurs beginning to make wine but this all including the patient vineyard work looks very serious and respectful.
There's no pump in this cellar, they work with gravity. First they do the destemming above the tank, then when maceration they do one pigeage per day, and after pressing they let the juice/wine flow to the barrels or cellar vats through pipes. The press is an old one and Andras just renovated the basket oak staves.
This is a pretty nice cellar indeed, looks very healthy. The walls and ceiling are so different from what I'm used to see in the Loire, here instead of chalk-type limestone you have this hard volcanic stone, it must have been a tough job to dig through. The owner of this cellar is 94 and he still drives. Not all of the ceiling was reinforced with bricks because part of it is hardened volcanic ash and it is very strong and reliable. The cellar was totally black with mold when he got it and he had sand cleaning done because in the 1950s people were growing mushrooms here and the remaining mold might not having been compatible with winemaking. At the end of the cellar you can guess that there was a connection with further tunnels from the neighboring cellars, but this was later closed with a wall.
Kinga is taking a 2021 sample from a 20-liter demijohn, we're tasting a first wine, and indeed a micro-cuvée as it is made from a few vines of Csókaszőlő planted in 2008, yet another forgotten variety brought back to life by József Szentesi. Alcohol here is probably 13,7 % he says. Aromas of sweet spices with thin, enjoyable tannin touch. He says it's very Italian in style in the mouth. The temperature in the cellar is 10 C (50 F).
We taste from a narrow grey plastic tank now, this is Laska 2021, a local variety with very little planted surface in the country. Deep, exciting nose. The mouth is a bight tight at this stage. The malolactic didn't start by itself (other winemakers faced this same problem this year), so he used ferments for that, he plans to bottle this in summer, they see good potential with this wine. He added so2 at first racking and after destemming, total sulfites is about 70, which is low. András felt some light mousiness in this cuvée, I didn't detect anything myself.
__ Kékfrankos (Blaufränkisch) 2021, a selection from Jozsef Szentesi which he planted in his warmer parcel. I like that, very enjoyable wine ! Especially for such a young Kékfrankos. He says volatile is at limit level here (doesn't bother me at all).
We taste now a Kékfrankos from a barrel, it comes from the colder terroir (the one we saw above), he says they picked it a bit early, october 2. Alcohol level here is 12,5 % or a bit less. He may blend this wine with the other parcel's Kékfrankos. The nose seemed neutral to be and in the mouth not very expressive at this stage.
We now taste from another demijohn, this is another forgotten variety of the region : Hajnos Kék, resurrected again by Szentesi. I can hardly decipher my notes here, sorry, I wrote something about 40 vines.
International Wine Challenge interview of Jozsef Szentesi
Wine Sofa story on Jozsef Szentesi
There's nothing like watching young people working as a leisure activity ... and what are they working on, of course?Well, one of the oldest things: making wine. Bravo! That's how it should be... thanks for the article!
Károly
(a dear relative from Szeged, where the wine is not very good... but the red peppers are beautiful) :)
Posted by: Kokas Károly | May 23, 2022 at 04:42 PM