„2011 was the opportunity to make the ideal dry white wine. The grapes were so healthy that they were smiling at you. This is the 13th vintage of our dry estate wine, yet we learn something new from nature every year. The most important thing we’ve experienced in the past ten years was balance. The precise timing of the harvest, but even more giving full concentration during the time of fermentation. For me fermentation is the most important time, the most significant part of a wine’s life and one that I supervise throughout. That’s the crucial point: when the grape becomes a wine.”
Vineyards:
Oremus Sátoraljaújhely, loose structured, rhyolite soil Mandolás Tolcsva, compact clay on rhyolite sub-soil Szentvér Tolcsva, rhyolite, clay Budaházi Olaszliszka, rhyolite with tiny obsidian fragments Kútpatka Tolcsva, rhyolite-based clay soil Henye Bodrogkeresztúr, loess, clay, loam Petrács Tolcsva, andesite base soil with red clay and piroxine and jáspis Gyapáros Tolcsva, extremely hard clay, fluid rhyolite with big obsidian rocks
Estate director, winemaker: András Bacsó (59) Owner: Vega Sicilia Spain Foundation of the cellar: 1993 Area: 91 ha yielding grape Total bottling: 150,000 bottles
Winemaking and wine style: bunch selection, quick pressing and perfect must settling followed by what the winemaker considers the most important: the “masterful” fermentation through 10 to 15 days with cultured yeast at 18-19 degrees. The wine is kept on its fine lees and stirred every two weeks, ageing takes place in barrels ranging from 68-liter (half an average gönci barrel) to 340-liter mixed new oak barrels filled to the maximum, in conditions that exclude any oxygen. Complex, extremely round, rich estate wines.
The meaning of name Oremus: The meaning of the word is let’s pray, let’s plead. It’s the word the priests use to call the congregation to prayer at the time of service. One of the estate’s main vineyards was named after it, and later the winery as well where once the Zemplén monks cultivating the grapes were called for prayer at the break of work. Another interesting fact is that until the millennium the same word was used for the local Zéta grape variety, thus not only the estate but also a grape was called the same way as the vineyard.