VILLÁNY: Multiple Personalities

By Stuart Pigott - last revision: 24.05.26

When I began seriously exploring Hungarian wines in 2009 and 2010 the Villány region was the big red wine success story. In contrast to Tokaj that reinvented itself as the country’s great white wine region by building on tradition, Villány seemed to sign up for Full-Throttle Parkerism and to adopt the motto, “anything Bordeaux can do, we can do better!“ I’m not saying anything new with these words, in fact those are the very things about Villány that a good part of the international wine scene finds a TURN OFF to this day. And in case anyone doesn’t already realize it, that sort of wine isn’t my personal preference either.

On the other hand, this website rejects all forms of prejudice and accepts that excellent wines can also be made in styles we personally don't like. And we are always trying to find out what is actually happening NOW, rather than clinging to what we thought was happening at some undefined point in time called "recently". These things, together with the desire to reconnect with a bunch of talented winemakers I hadn’t seen since March 2022 (my last visit, while working for James Suckling) were the reasons I just spent a week in Hungary. Here is the first in a series of stories about the New Wine Hungary.

PART ONE: The Old "New" Villány

At first glance Villány looks easy to understand: a red wine paradise on the last range of hills at the southern tip of Hungary, that has become a second Holy Land for red Bordeaux grapes. The truth is that although Villány lies at 45.5° North like the northern end of Bordeaux its Mediterranean climate is as different from that of Bordeaux as Napa Valley in California or Bolgheri in Italy! In contrast to all of them there are no large bodies of water anywhere near Villány; the whole of Croatia separates the region from the Adriatic!

And the traditional main grape variety of the region is not a Bordeaux grape, but Kékportó aka Portugieser, which arrived here with German settlers in the 1740s. It is still important enough that the regional designation „Redy“ was created for Portugieser-based blends. However, only one such wine was shown to me, plus one varietal Portugieser. That means the variety was almost invisible, which is strange considering that there are still more than 300 hectares planted with it! The contrast to Cabernet Franc could hardly be more dramatic, not just in terms of numbers - I tasted 17 wines including blends dominated by this grape - but in the many impressive results, the majority of them under the designation Villányi Franc (introduced in 2006) that demands 100% varietal purity.

Of course, all of this is important to understanding the wines, BUT while I was talking to winemakers from the region during I suddenly realized that another factor was exerting a much more profound effect upon them and the region as a whole: GENERATIONS.

The generation that built up Villány during the years after the end of the Communist state in 1989 were motivated by the great opening up to the world that followed it. I well remember seeing on TV how thousands of Hungarians poured over the border with Austria immediately after it was opened, so, of course, winemakers looked WEST for inspiration. These developments coincided with the most dynamic phase of the Great Bordeaux Boom, which began with the 1982 vintage, so no wonder the ambitious new winemakers of Villány turned to BDX for everything from winemaking techniques to oak barrels. At this point all the major critics were praising the most powerful and concentrated Bordeaux wines to the heavens, so this idea was also imported.

The resulting wines enjoyed a huge success in Hungary, capturing the resurgent nationalism and quickly becoming status symbols for the nouveau riche. However, they only slowly gained some recognition in the West, often being gently derided as derivative of Bordeaux and/or Califronia (the latter comparison resulting from the high alcoholic content of many ambitious new Villány reds). The exceptions to this were the Villány Cabernet Francs, which already during the late 1990s were praised by Michael Broadbent MW; the official seal of approval of the conservative British wine establishment. I am sure that Michael would have enjoyed the best Cabernet Francs I tasted if he could have joined me from beyond the grave. The Malatinszky Kúria  Villány  Cabernet Franc  2017 was the most amazing - at once compact, self-confidently dry, yet very precise - but this was no surprise after the fabulous 2013 vintage of this wine.

During my visit to Hungary in March 2022 it became obvious to me that the new generation of Hungarian winemakers see everything very differently to their parents' generation, which is hardly a surprise. However, the way that - for understandable reasons - a large part of the Liberal West turned its back on Hungary during the 16 years of the Orban regime means that awareness of this is not widespread. I felt like I was starting to catch up. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to return during the following years to deepen my understanding of the New Wine Hungary that was already taking shape.

PART TWO: Beautiful Shocks

Whether you want it or not, reality not only has a way of catching up with you, but can do so in sudden, abrupt jumps. And that’s what happened when I tasted the A. Gere  Villányi  SOLUS Kopar Dülö  2023 with Andrea Gere. I was hypnotized by its  breathtaking elegance; the energy and filigree at the finish off the scale. And yet it has an enveloping nose of exotic fruits and flowers! And then I realized that it’s a pure Merlot. „I hate Merlot, but this is totally amazing!“ I told Andrea. I didn’t tell her that I’d just given it 100 points, so reading this will be another shock for her. During the tasting she mentioned that when the project started in 2000 the Tuscan Merlot Massetto was the role model. However, it’s such a different wine, much more massive wine...and almost 20 times the price of the A. Gere wine! The fact is that Masseto is a rather traditional great red wine, only the polish and precision being modern, whereas the A. Gere Solus is totally 21st century in the best possible sense.

It took me a while after this beautiful shock to fully digest the reality that my intensive Villány tastings had revealed, but then I came to a startling conclusion. In Villány a great many wines remain within the stylistic parameters that were established during the 1990, and in some cases they taste almost identical to the wines of the 1990s! However, there is now a significant number of wines that are self-confidently modern with terrific freshness and originality. Can call this diversity or schizophrenia depending on your point of view. However, this situation can also be found within single producer’s ranges, most notably at Bock and A. Gere. At Bock the use of different bottle shapes for the two groups makes this abundantly clear. Nothing could be further from Bordeaux than this situation! Each Bordeaux château has a clear stylistic direction to which all their wines rigidly adhere; a total contrast to modern Villány.

Already 20 years ago I became aware that there were alternative winemakers in Villány, firstly in the form of the then Berlin-based lawyer Horst Hummel, (who was also my lawyer for a while). Sadly, the youngest wine Horst submitted for tasting was a 2020, so I will have to catch up with his fascinating orange wines and sparkling wines another time. There’s no denying that his reds have great personality, even if they are sometimes quite eccentric in the positive sense. However, he’s not alone, as the biodynamic Wasmann wines and the natural wines from Malatinszky show. Then, there’s the Heumann winery of the Swiss-German couple Evelyne and Erhard Heumann. Their wines are clearly French and Italian-inspired, but have a completely different style to those of the local winemakers. So, contemporary Villány is a region with multiple wine personalities. Welcome to the New Wine Hungary!

PART 3: MULTIPLE WINE PERSONALITIES

48 wines tasted, including one with 100 points and one with 98 points.