Hungarian Wine Challenge – Budapest Wine Festival
Like lots of people, I love a challenge! In September 2024, I set myself the challenge, while visiting Hungary, of travelling to multiple wine regions, tastings, festivals and other wine events in order to find some of the best wines in the country. The challenge started on 1 September and finished towards the end of the month.
Along the journey there were a number of places I visited. Among them was the Budapest Wine Festival, at Buda Castle.
About the Wine Festival
Every year in September, there is a wine festival at Buda Castle. This is a large gathering of some of the biggest producers in Hungary, as well as some of the slight smaller and boutique producers. The festival lasts for a long weekend, and visitors have a choice of day tickets or tickets for the entire weekend. The event essentially takes over the entire Buda Castle area with not only wine, but food stalls and entertainment as well.
The event has, over time, I’m informed, become somewhat more exclusive and now tends to attract more international visitors as well as a younger wealthier crowd from the city looking to party the night away with food and wine. Consequently, neither the admission tickets nor the wines are particularly cheap by Hungarian standards. And only really those with the cash are willing to pay the high exhibition fees to showcase their wines. That said, there were still a lot of stalls, so it wasn’t disappointing.
Working in my favour was the fact it was raining most of the weekend. This meant the event was less busy, and more importantly the vendors were prepared to barter on their prices a little.
Wine and food options were really good. There was pretty much every type of wine you could want, and the entry did include one free glass. I wouldn’t say it was the best wine I drank while in Hungary, but it was pretty decent as complementary glasses of wine go. It was nice to see that they were really good at providing places to buy water as well, which sometimes is a little difficult to get hold of. And I managed to treat myself to a chimney cake which was well made as well, and helped soak up some of the alcohol.
I did find some real gems at the festival. I had some great wines from Teleki – a 2018 Cabernet France and a 2019 as well. I rated the 2019 slightly higher than the 2018. I also had a Matias Cabernet Franc Prestige which was very good. As well as that, I managed to get a Bock Cabernet Franc which I rated as of Outstanding quality, as well as two Bordi wines (the Grand and the Grand Optimus) which I also rated as Outstanding. There were also the Soltész Delelő Egri Cuvee Superior 2018 and Soltész Egri Bikavér Grand Superior 2018 which I thought were very good wines.
| Two of the highlights of the festival for me came on the third day. Firstly, I met an amazing producer, Rácz Lilla who is bucking the trend in the Red Wine dominated region of Villány, by making sparkling wines. I really enjoy a very dry sparkling, and so I rated the Brut Nature very highly, and the Brut was very pleasant as well. The second, was being able to try two of the top end wines from one of the Hungarian wine legends Csaba Malatinszky who makes organic wines using the Method Malatinszky. The Malatinszky Akaska, a Chardonnay made in a buttery, creamy, complex and delicious style with layers of flavour, was an Outstanding wine. So too, was the Maghari. The Malatinszky method, essentially utilises sealed oak barrels giving a very unique flavour. |
There were many other wineries who were very hospitable. Two mentioned here are Neszmély and Ostorosbor, both of whom organised impromptu tastings for me there on the spot which meant that instead of drinking glasses of wine, I got samples of multiple wines to try.
Overall I enjoyed the festival. There were some very good wineries present. In terms of quantity, this is slightly smaller than the Szeged festival, but still pretty extensive. I thought the event was generally well organised, and the food options seemed to cover all tastes.
One of the challenges I think Budapest is facing more recently is how to pitch itself as a tourist destination without losing the local market. The event may also be struggling a little bit with that. At the moment the pricing appears to be aimed at wealthy Hungarians and Foreigners which does mean that there are definitely cheaper festivals to attend. But, and its a big but, the event is held at Buda Castle which is a superb venue.
If I were to criticise a little… The holders they give you to hold you wine glass really aren’t wine glass holders, and I managed to break my wine glass because it slipped out of the holder. They also had some issues with power which probably actually made the wine glass holder problem worse, in that there was a blackout on the Saturday evening for quite some time meaning it was pretty much pitch black. I was not the only one who ended up dropping my glass. It also wasn’t terribly easy navigating to particular wineries. I have pretty terrible sense of direction, but the face the event takes place across multiple courtyards, on different levels, etc… made it all the more difficult. Some decent signage just giving the stall numbers would have been useful. If it was there, it was well hidden!
So I think I would revisit the festival again, but possibly next time just on a day ticket. If you do decide to pay the festival a visit, do let me know what your thoughts are. And in the meantime, keep enjoying this beautiful planet we live on, one glass at a time.