Hungary: Its Fine Wines and Winemakers Vásárlói kedvenc

Before we embark on our journey around Hungary it is worth taking a good look at a reliefmap of the Carpathian Basin to enable us to idenrify the sites ofthe best vineyards. Observe how the mountains shelter the vast lowland plain watered by two great rivers and an immense lake. It is on the south-facing slopes ofthe foothills ofthese mountains, on the volcanic hills above the lake, and on the huge outcrops oflimestone in Szekszárd and Villány, that we will find the soil conditions that possess the potential to make exceptional wines. Landscape is made up ofrocks and soils and the plant life they feed, but what we are looking for is hard, old, mineral-rich bedrock overlain with well-drained soils that encourage wine roors to search deep for water and nutrient supply. Hungary is blessed with some superb natural viricultural sites as a result ofvolcanic activky millions ofyears ago and its coverage by the Great Sea which, when it receded, left a clayey soil enriched with shell deposits. Further volcanic activity then brought windborne material to mix with rhe clay, splintered rock and shell. It is these mineral-rich volcanic soils that give Hungarian wines their vibrant acidity and robust flavour.

The map also shows that the latitude of Hungary is between 45 and 48 degrees north. The climate is temperate; more continental in the north, where birch, fern and forest cyclamen freely and where wild boar and deer still roam the forests; more Mediterranean in the south, who almond and fig trees flourish and fields are covered in fire-red anenomies. These climatic conditions provide warmth and light as well as good winter rainfall, and are for the production ofaromatic white wines in the north, and full-bodied reds in the south.