Magyar borászok, borászatok

Etyeki Kúria - everything in the right place

We spoke to Sára Matolcsy, head of the Etyeki Kúria estate and winemaker Sándor Mérész about the ever-popular winery. "We’ve been bottling wines for 14 years in Etyek. We started out as outsiders but we’ve become part of the village by now. Although we live in the city, we come home to Etyek everyday", says Sára Matolcsy. "Our aim when we reconsidered our portfolio was to make our image and our selection clearer, more transparent and more comprehensible. Out of the original eleven wines six have remained, covering two categories. The premium segment has been retained with a Pinot, a Chardonnay and a Sauvignon Blanc. Besides these, we market three "basic" wines - Kúria Red (the successor of Magyar Vándor), Kúria Rozé (a Pinot Noir Rosé, the same as we’ve been making up to now) and the Kúria White (the successor of Cuvée."Regarding the design, they spent a day with a female graphic designer from Austria in the village. "We finally stumbled upon the crochet pattern in the Swabian museum, which you can see on the label now. We know that we are in the 21st Century but it was our intention to find and keep something from the past."

"The wine and grapes are down to my decisions", interjects winemaker Sándor Mérész, who was Tibor Gál’s "pupil" and studied the profession in California and Tuscany, joining the Kúria team last year. "Everything is determined in the vineyard. Importantly, you can work from an excellent starting point of completely ripe fruit in Etyek, and our technology is correct, straightforward and ideal. The last couple of decades in Hungarian winemaking were about the equipment and the modernising of the cellars, though now you have to lay the foundations for top wine in the vineyards."Accordingly, in 2009 Etyeki Kúria intensified its wines, making them more complex and distinctive. "Now we are making the selection more layered and diverse, continues Sándor. "We are extremely serious about moving in this direction, and we want to do it." He is in the vineyard almost all day, while he explains that Sára is in charge of the "less pleasant administration", even though she cannot detach herself from the vines either. "Of course we are hoeing the bit she can see from the cellar window," quips Sándor. "However, in seriousness there is a lot of work to be done everywhere. As I’ve said, you have to prove yourself in the vineyard and then you can achieve anything. A huge winery can do almost everything, but the only thing you can’t do on 500 hectares is to work it yourself in the way that you can with 15 hectares. We are a family ‘boutique winery’, which is something we can turn to our advantage, though of course we must pay strict attention to every vine." Etyeki Kúria’s vines are developing nicely with new additions broadening the family appeal. "The French Pinot Noir clones planted in 2006 have made Pinot for the first time, and a certain part of the Sauvignon Blanc comes from a virgin plantation and the rosé has also been enriched by the yield of the new Pinot plantations," continues Sándor. "While with some types we continue to use reductive fermentation and ageing that was earlier typical of the Kúria, there is more and more emphasis on the bigger, 20-hectolitre big barrels as well, in order to make our wines more unique. But that is only the technology: the real solution comes from the meticulous work on the grapes and from the ripe fruit."