Earlier one could find this name in guide books and on tourist maps of Balaton, and now it's on a wine label. So how did this come about?

The world is changing. Two years ago my sister was a doctor and I worked as an economist in Budapest. Now, Réka is in charge of the arboretum and I'm in charge of the vineyard and the wines here on the side of the Kisörsi-hegy, in Badacsonyörs. Everything happened so fast that sometimes I'm still surprised, even today. Ours was a change of lifestyles that came out of the blue: earlier we came home to Badacsony to visit our parents and today Réka lives here and deals with the business of the arboretum, and I join in to deal with the work of the winery while commuting from Budapest.

You're continuing your father's heritage...
Yes, even though it was our great-great grandfather who planted the vineyard and built the "old house" with the cellar in 1878, and it was our great grandfather who founded the arboretum, which is famous for its beautiful pine trees, 110 years ago. However, if it wasn't for our grandfather and father, we wouldn't be able to talk about wine. It's miraculous to deal with it and at the same time a very challenging task to live up to my father's memory and my grandfather's dream. I'd never thought that as the smallest child I could one day be part of it.

How did you become a winemaker?
We cultivate about three hectares of grapes currently on the land connected to the five hectare arboretum. Following the death of our father, a lot of his friends surprisingly helped us to grow up to the task in hand. In the meantime, beside childrearing, I attended viniculture school - the knowledge I obtained there also helped a lot. I discuss everything with Réka, we form the style of the wines together, we collectively decide about everything from the grape work to the label. This is the first year that we're putting our bottled wines on the market. We are at the very beginning of the road and we are optimistic.

We tasted light, fresh wines from you. Is that the typical style?
Now mainly it is. We make our wines in the renovated, clean cellar where our great-great grandfather started. What leads us on is to maintain most of the aromas and taste of the grapes that grow in this place with its special microclimate. To achieve this we feel the best winery equipment is reductive technology: we concentrate on the flavours of the grape, and the unique character of the place of origin and the varieties. Besides this, we'd like to remain faithful to tradition as well, and we also have barrel-aged wine made from Szürkebarát, which we'll bottle in the middle of the summer.

Folly Arborétum

Folly Arborétum

FOLLY ARBORÉTUMBudai Zöld 2024

FOLLY ARBORÉTUMBoróka 2024

FOLLY ARBORÉTUMCédrus Cuvée 2023

filters

Add to list