Szűcsi, Mátra (Hungary)
We're here in a village named Szűcsi (pronounce sweetchie or something like that) which sits along a gentle slope surrounded by vineyards (see the pic on the left, best viewpoint on the village for Balázs who stops there when he has something to do in his
parcels). The village is located probably
much less than 3 kilometers as the crow flies from Gyöngyöspata and that's where Balázs Palya (who has a day job as electrical engineer) and his girlfriend Julianna (or Julcsi) Mészáros (who works in the logistics sector) started a small wine farm in 2019 with little grapes to work with, part from their garden, part given to them by Julianna's family. This is a passion thing for them and their prime intent when they started this was to remain sustainable both in the vineyard and the cellar, just let the wine express itself by its own. They do everything by hand they have no machine whatsoever in the cellar, no pump and they don't add anything in the wine, not even sulfites, and no fining, no filtration. Balázs understands that to make wine, 70 % of the job is in the vineyard and 30 % in the cellar, and if you have a great soil, you'll get a great vine which will yield great grapes, and almost without doing anything after that the wine should be great.
Their production is about only 1500 or 2000 bottles a year from 1,2 hectare of productive grapes, so it's really a very artisanal thing powered by passion and not a business mindset. The yield is like one or 1,5 kilogram of grapes per vine maximum. The vines are 20 years old on average, let aside the older parcel which is 50. For example the Chardonnay was planted in 2002 and the Kékfrankos was planted the year he was born, in 1997.
In this parcel which is named Kekcskekö (means goat stone), they have both Kékfrankos (8 rows) and Cabernet Sauvignon (6 rows), the latter not being his preferred variety, not very local. The vines here stand one meter high from which then the shoots will go up further, being held between the wires. They let the weeds grow by their own (they don't sow anything) and will only mow before harvest. All the work here is done by them two, they don't employ third parties for the vineyard work, be it pruning, taking out buds and leaves and so on. They'll wait the end of july to cut the apex, letting it grow free until then. For the picking they get help from family and friends, this is a good moment and celebration for their party. Asked about the pruning, he says they follow the Simonit & Sirch method which was set up some 15 years ago by two Italian guys who considered faulty pruning ways were responsible for the spread of Esca, a fatal disease that kills a vine very quickly. Bencze also works along this method for his own pruning.
I think this is the 2nd parcel we stopped at here, it's named Tavaczfold or spring field, and it was planted in 2002.
They farmed organic their small surface from the start and converted to biodynamic farming in 2021. Their surface is 1,5 hectare with Kékfrankos (Blaufränkisch), Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. They have alqo an old complanted parcel (50 years) with Rheinriesling, Kékfrankos (Blaufränkisch), Welschriesling and another one. He bought this particular parcel 2 years ago but it hadn't been taken care of during more than 7 years, so it took time to have it recover and they make a field blend from it. They wanted to replant it anew at the beginning but the local viticulture laws don't allow it yet because they have to have had at least one harvest from it, that's why they had to first put the vines back on track. They do the biodynamic sprayings along the calendar and make their own compost with the 7 basic preparations. They were about to spray the 501 the following week. Asked where he found the inspiration for following biodynamic farming, he says there are not many people doing biodynamics in Matra but István Bencze in the Balaton region is kind of the initiator in this field [and he also vinifies without sulfites]. He met István as well as Roland Szimeiszter (of Roland Wines), both working with a company, Lees Brothers, which deals with natural wines
We passed along this while driving around the village, you can see how it looks beneath the surface, that's such a thin layer of earth, no doubt the vines will get it hard here (and we all know a struggling vine makes great grapes)... Balázs says the earth layers makes 50 centimeters at most in the area, and given the continental summer here is pretty dry, the vines are certainly struggling. Speaking of potential problems for the vines, there's no frost problems here.
Like in many wine regions, there are a lot of fruit trees around here, but nobody's perfect and some village orchard owners are lazy and keep on using herbicide on their tiny plots.
At one point we stopped where they keep their compost, it looks like a big animal sleeping in the grass, it's indeed warm and alive in there and all this mysterious life will find its way to the parcels' soil and atmosphere one day... I asked Balázs about where he learned doing the biodynamic preps (as it's not very common in Mátra, he says he learnt directly from an Hungarian pioneer in the field, Katalin Kiss, who operates a biodynamic farm in Bátaszék in the Szekszárd wine region (the red patch here, another outstanding wine region in this country) where she also runs a seed bank and exchange. They visited her place in spring and autumn to take part to group preparations because some preparations are made in big volumes and they won't need such volume for their own tiny surface, so it makes more sense to take part to such team training and sharing the resulting preps. he also read several books by Pierre Masson on biodynamics.
Heading to the village of Szűcsi and to their own cellar, we reach what we can call a cellar street, as in Hungary cellars are usually sitting all together in streets outside the village. There are 4 parallel such cellar streets in this village, you must imagine the activity around here back in the times, wether at harvest time or at end of vinification time, when men would gather here with friends to celebrate in vinous libations...
Most cellars got their respective tiny house (which serves as a chai) in front, actually you generally reach the cellar door in the house, but some are just plain simple cellars dug through the rock. Given they have electricity they must have been used for a long time, possibly well into the 2000s.
I walked into this one as the door was open, and it was really small, with just a cement fermenter remaining from its active days, which may have been during the communist era, when villagers were allowed to make wine for themselves from their private rows. many look really abandonned which means there's a chance micro vintners here should beable to find a place to begin make wine.
Here about the one with a wooden door, I'm told the owner is a university teacher from Szeged (southern Hungary) who makes cheese and that's where he does the long affinage of his cheese.
We reach their own cellar in the middle of this cute cellar street
When you walk past the door, it's the typical configuration of these family cellars in Hungary, with a first room doing the job of a chai, that's where they press the grapes, and the second room is the cellar itself, usually tunnel-shaped with stabler temperature around the year, that's where the wine will be stored and age if given the time (it doesn't usually take a lot of months to drink the production of a family parcel).
Here you can see the hard rock of the hill, it's so hard that you don't need to buttress the ceiling like you would with a soft, crubling stone. And when you look closer you can see the multiple layers of this geology, that must be very informative for people in the know. Balázs says these cellars were dug between the two world wars, often using explosives. Here he keeps a few bottles, and experimental wines as well. Temperature here is a stable 10 C (50 F).
We drive back to the village proper, where Balázs and Julianna are renovating an old house (the one on the left on the pic above) and that's where they actually do the vinification part. On the picture here we're in the backyard looking at the vegetable garden.
They got this basket press from Julianna's family, it was manufactured in Hungary in 1954 during the soviet occupation and communist years. It was in very bad condition when they recovered it, they had to polish the metal bach and change the basket staves. Balázs says with a smirk that it's all the technology they use here, he says this press is very gentle in the pressing.
You can see here the boxes used for the picking as well as the back sprayer Balázs uses when he needs to spray sufur on the vineyard. Otherwise they bottle by gravity, racking the wine in a stainless tank first, raising it a bit then in order to have the sufficient gravity pressure.
We don't have these fermenters in France, they're made in Italy, easy to move and go from 50 liters to 750 liters... Their Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 was fermented whole-clustered in such a fermenter, it was Beaujolais style for a kind of Primeur wine. He says he doesn't like how Cabernet Sauvignon is vinified usually and he wanted to show this variety under a kinder, more easy-drinking character. They did a gentle pressing after the maceration, doing the fermentation half in tanks, half in old barrels.
You'll see these tanks in many places, they're made in Hungary. We taste a first wine from this tank, a Chardonnay, 10 % skin contact and 90 % whole bunch direct press. He says the 10 % maceration gives the wine structure and stability with the tannins which is important for them as they don't use sulfites. The direct press gives a sweet round side to the wine from what I understand. The wine is turbid, fermentation still going on, they stir the lees to help the fermentation keep on going or restart, he thinks it should be completed by july. The malolactic is over already. In the mouth, a bit perly still very juicy and sweet, the lab (there's a lab 20 minutes from here) says it's something like 10 grams residual sugar (my feel was more like 20). Balázs felt some bretty notes but he says after some time it will get away by itself.
We're here tasting (drinking should I say !) a gorgeous direct-press red from 2021 if I'm right (just look at this color, you get all you need to know here) I can't tell about the variety, or let's say I forgot what variety it was. It was bottled end of november (30) 2021 and it had been picked october 4th. Color : so nice, gently light, and turbid. No skin contact here, just direct press. I love the mouth, feminine, easydrinking, smooth and fresh. Alcohol : 12 %. Smoky notes but no oak here, comes from a demijohn. He made 120 bottles, let's call this an experimental cuvée...First such cuvée he made from this variety was 2019. And of course, no fining, no filtration, no so2. Asked if he got any accident as they do zero-zero-zero from the start, he says that in 2019 they did add tiny amounts of sulfites but decided to stop for good in 2020, he says everyone gets accidents but you need to work with healthy grapes and at the end the only key that the natural winemakers have is the time, when to stir or not stir, be careful with lunar time windows. Certain things you have to do them in the lowest activity of the wines, which itself is in symbiosis with the one of the moon, and it's a good insurance against the wine getting in a weird direction.
__ Palya Rubicon 2020, this is Kékfrankos, they named this cuvée thinking about their decision to buy parcels
and start this thing, it's like crossing the Rubicon, there's no way back... The wine was bottled in march 2020 with a bit of fine lees after spending its élevage in Hungarian oak (30 %) and plastic tank (70 %), then blending of the two for one month and lastly a gentle pressing. They get only 50-55 % of the juice from a 400-kilogram load, pretty gentle pressing indeed !. No filtration, no fining, no added sulfites. It fermented in a mere 12 days. 30 % whole bunch here in the fermenttion which gives some energy to the whole cuvée. 11,5 % alcohol. Demonstrative wine in the mouth, lovely !.
He sells through the Lees Brothers which specializes in natural wines from the region, and he exports also to Copenhagen (Hoetoft), Poland (Philip Lugowski or Filip ługowski in Polish), Wien (Austria) through natural-wine restaurant Bruder and California through Danch & Granger Selections.
Here we come with the Palya Cabernet Sauvignon 2020, and given the moon situation at the time of this visit, Balázs thought it was better to carafe the wine. I wish every Cabernet Sauvignon were more in this style indeed, and just think Balázs said he was not too fond of Cabernet Sauvignon... The wine is lighly fizzy with an exciting chalky color. Nose in line and enjoyable mouth as well for this 11,5 % wine.
Aromas of morello cherries, also as he rightly remarks, notes of green spices like green pepper. Lovely wine you must try. Shop price will be around 6000 HUF (15 € at the time of writing). He made 400 bottles of this. I recommend the wine, but only 50 or 60 bottles left in the cellar.
It is bottled under a generic Felső-Magyarország [Northern Hungary] label, here also you recognise many natural wines under their humble non-appellation labelling. He says here if you don't do conventional wines the judges manning the appellation commissions (who for some are themselves producers) will not allow you in because the natural wines need to open after opening in order to express themselves fully. In his own view a wine has to be drunk after some time folmlowing opening, and you feel its energy even better if you wait a few hours, while the judges are used to give a verdict 20 seconds after opening a bottle, and a living wine isn't fit for such a hasty judgment. And some of them are big producers and they're not open to a different wine culture & philosophy. The Cabernet here was picked fully ripe, so I'm surprised the alcohol leven is only 11,5 %, and Balázs says this is the same for Kékfrankos, it has to do with 2020 which was an interesting vintage in that regard, very different from 2021 which reached 13,5 %, this is because of the weather.
At one point we walked around a small lake lined with cabins where I'm told quite a good number of Germans moved permanently. The place looks like a fisherman's paradise.
We also walked around what was a forbidden zone back in the soviet occupation (which I already approached some 8 years ago), the small road going up to this hill top was close to locals, the former military command center still has its barbed wire fencing but it is now privately owned, even if its owner (who happens to have been recently working in the Hungarian government agency TEK) has to respect certain rules regarding the use of its multilayer underground complex. Next time, I'm sure I'll get inside...
Great profiles. Glad someone is interviewing these up-and-coming natural winemakers in Hungary. I have two names to recommend next time you are in Hungary.
1. Oszkar Maurer (actually in Hungarian-Serbian border on Serbia side) -- I worked with Oszkar for 2-3 months in harvest 2019. I think you've mentioned his name in other places on your blog, so I won't go into detail. But he speaks good English, so you can conduct a full interview with him. He's OG natural since early 2000s.
2. Imre Kalo. In Eger, his son is taking over for him now. I tasted in his cellar in summer 2019. He speaks no English at all, so you'll need a translator-friend handy. But this is the 100% real deal, hardcore natural winemaker since late 1990s, but he never sold commercially, so no one outside of Hungary wine nerds really knows who he is. This post is kind of over-the-top praise (https://www.vinography.com/2012/07/love_is_all_you_need_the_magic) but the wines are very interesting imo.
Anyway, I'm sure your list of people to see is long without my 2 additions. Cheers!
Posted by: Darius Liddell | June 04, 2022 at 05:08 AM
Thank you Darius, great tips, I had Maurer in my mind for next time I go on that side of the country, and great to know about someone in Eger, I'll try to find a translator when I go there...
Posted by: Bert | June 06, 2022 at 09:44 AM
Hello,
The son and the son-in-law (Ádám) of Imre speaks English very well, so translation would not be an issue. I f they would be busy I can also translate :) Ádám and Imre’s daughter also has a winery in the same village called Hegyi-Kaló Pince, they make also amazing natural wines!
I also have an even smaller natural winery, so we are looking forward to a visit :)) see you in Szomolya!
Best regards,
Bálint Lakatos (Csalakatos Pince)
Posted by: Lakatos Bálint | June 06, 2022 at 09:26 PM
Hello Bálint, thank you for these tips, I'll look forward for visiting you when again in the area,
Best,
Bert
Posted by: Bert | June 08, 2022 at 11:02 PM