Until this trip, I had no idea Hungary had wineries – let alone over one hundred of them just in this region only thirty minutes from Budapest! …and if you think that is a lot, consider that once there were over 1,000 wineries in Etyek.
Crossing the beautiful River Danube once more (you will be familiar with many of these sights from my other posts)…
…and this (below) shows the statue on top of the Citadella…
…we head out of town only about thirty minutes to our first of three stops…
By the way, this bridge looks upside down, don’t you think? 🙂
…and we enter the Etyek region where grapes have been grown since Roman times.
Although the snow in Budapest melted days ago, up here there are still the remains of the major snowfall we had last week…
…and this is our first stop – and yes, it looks just like a house with a lot of vines in the back yard – primarily because that’s what it is…
…and the red-coloured building next door – another house with lots of vines in the back yard…
…but this house has been converted into a tasting area for this winery that has about three hectares of vines, if I remember correctly, that are scattered in various places through the area.
The winery is run by a husband and wife team – and they both also hold down full-time jobs – and they have a young family! She is a teacher and he sells wine-making equipment for a large company.
The wines we tasted in each of the three places were all very ‘clean’ and ‘fresh’… I guess another word that comes to mind is that most of them tasted very ‘pure’ – like mountain spring water – but with a kick! 🙂 I bought a bottle of this one to bring back with me.
Also, all the wines we tasted bar one were all blends… They were all delicious!
Oh, and our tour was conducted by City and Wine, and they could not have been more lovely. Initially, I had booked on another day but since I was the only person booked, Eszter contacted me and asked me if I would like to change to go with a group – and so I ended up with a most delightful small group consisting of Eszter, our wonderful guide, Joseph, two young men from Finland, and two young women from … the Scottish Highlands!!! Remember where I spent a glorious week or so over New Year’s in Scotland? That’s where they live! (well, not in Ardoe House, but in Aberdeen).
After a fabulous tasting – and fascinating conversation about the impact of WWII on the area, we head off…
No, it doesn’t all look like this… Little by little they are laying paved roads, etc…
…and on the way, we drive by the Korda Filmpark. Named after Sir Alexander Korda, this site is fast becoming one of the busiest film studios in the world.
Korda has one of the biggest sound-stages in the world with an area of 6,000 square metres and an interior set buildable height of 20 metres.
While (below) they may not look like much from this side, the Filmpark has ten HECTARES of backlot sets, including (thanks to Wikipedia for this next bit):
New York/Brooklyn Set
Built for Hellboy II: The Golden Army, the backlot includes a full Brooklyn street block with four-story facades on sides, a movie theater, bank, restaurant, repair shop, freight loading docks and fire escapes. The length of the main street is 120 meters which runs into 60 meter long side streets at each end. The width of the paved road is 14.5 meters, with 3-4 meter sidewalks on each side. The large backlot area makes it possible to extend the set on all sides. The street façade can be modified to suit production’s needs.
Renaissance Set
The backlot was designed by Francois Seguin & Jonathan McKinstry for The Borgias TV series . It portrays numerous regions of historical Italy, from The Vatican to Florence. The more than 1 hectare renaissance city has various styled buildings and gates, courtyards, alleys, interiors, prison cell, a piazza and Vatican façade.
Medieval Village Set
Built for the World Without End miniseries, the 12,000 square meter set is situated in a natural environment next to a lake and forest. The set portrays a village from the 13-14th century with various houses, fortress wall, central square and ambulatory. Most of the houses include interiors.
…and we continue on to collect our Finnish friends…
…who (below) have been to – you guessed it, yet another house – only this one houses one of Hungary’s most famous chocolate makers! They did a chocolate tasting… Note to Self: how on earth did I miss that one?! 🙂
…and to our next stop…
They even made freshly churned garlic butter for us… Yum!
…and note the size of this cellar – that is the entire cellar for this winery!
…and again off and on our way… although by now we were all much more jovial and strangely louder… 🙂 The Hungarians certainly believe in giving value for ‘tasting’ – make it more like ‘drinking’, since no glass was ever just poured with only a tasting-sized amount. So, now about six or seven glasses of wine later…
…we continue on…
…to our third and final winery, where we had more ‘tasting’ and a delicious dinner…
…and about twenty minutes later we are again crossing the River Danube and back to home sweet home to my magnificent hotel… which I discovered was the Nazi headquarters in Hungary during WWII.
It was a glorious afternoon – and thank you to all my new friends who made it even better!
~ Bella
