Hungarian Wine Challenge – Szemes, Villány
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 Szemes wine cellar in Villány.
About the winery
Villány is not the easiest of places to get to! By train from Budapest it involves a change in pretty town of Pécs. The journey to Pécs takes around two and a half hours from Budapest by train. Once in Pécs, a change of train is requred and a further 40 minutes. Having travelled over 3 hours to get here, you will then need to get from the station on the edge of the town into the centre. There are infrequent buses, or you can walk a further 20 minutes. When you arrive, however, you will be rewarded for your three and a half journey with a town whose main street is lined with wineries. And many of the other streets as well!
Villány is very much red wine country, particularly Cabernet Franc, often labelled Villányi Franc. Being near the southern border, Villány gets a pretty decent amount of sunshine. This means that the grapes fully ripen developing depth of flavour and high sugar content which converts to alcohol when they ferment. Expect wines at 15% abv and more. These are big wines, not for the faint hearted.
Villány is a relatively small town. Forget notions of popping into Starbucks for a coffee or grabbing a McDonalds if you are feeeling peckish. This is proper Hungarian life, away from the bustle of the city. Shops close on Sundays, there are no taxis, and its so much the better for it. Don’t get me wrong, its not the 1900s, they have running water and electricity, and modern comforts. But its just more rural.
The Szemes sits towards the edge of the town, a short (10 minute) walk from the centre. I stuggled to find it at first as google maps placed it closer to the centre than it actually is, but with a quick phone call I arrived. The tasting room is functional and comfortable. And my tasting was accompanied by water (still or sparkling) and some snacks (which I’d preordered).
The evening got off to a good start with a nice sparkling wine, and something totally different – a white Cabernet Franc! Obviously, not only red wine can be made from red grapes, but I have to admit to having never seen a white Cabernet Franc before. It was a distinctive flavour, almost yeasty like beer and more substantial than other white wines, I imagine from the material in the skins.
Progressing on from there, there was a fruity rosé, and then onto the main business – the reds! And they were good reds. Starting with an entry level red and working up in quality level, they were increasingly complex (and higher in alcohol!). The wines became bigger with each progression, more full bodied and complex with more use of oak. This was definitely the way to be introduced to the Villány wine style.
After 3 or 4 wines, we went out to the cellar for a tour of the winemaking facilities and the maturation area. Here, the guide showed me a bottle of 1995 wine they still had in the cellar, preserving a piece of history. While in the cellar, there was a tasting direct from the barrel, which was an even richer, bigger, bolder, red! I’m pretty sure we were pushing 16 or 16.5% by this point! But the wines have the flavours to take the alcohol and to still be in balance.
Returning to the tasting room, there was a final red to round the evening off. And despite having had 6 wines, I was feeling distinctly like I’d drunk more like 9 due to the high alcohol content! I decided to buy a bottle of the white Cabernet Franc, and a bottle of red at the request of friend back in Budapest. Pricing was accessible and there is definitely a quality to price ratio which is pleasantly surprising here.
The host spoke English, which was impressive this far out of the city! And, while it was less polished than some of the people in Budapest who when they say they only speak a little English, speak it better than I do, we got by. There were plenty of information about the wines and the service was not too quick. I was the only person on the tour, which had potential for it to be a little awkward, but the host made sure it wasn’t.
Overall, I thought Szemes was a really great winery. I wish I’d bought a few more wines, and perhaps stretched the budget to pick up one of the later reds. They really were very good. I did the 15 minute walk back to my accomodation thinking I was looking forward to exploring Villány further, so Szemes did a great job of exciting me about the other visits. They also managed to surprise me with the white Cabernet Franc – I’d say its worth visiting just for that!
If you want to book a visit to Szemes you can find the options on Hellowine – click here. I can recommend any tasting which allows you to try a good range of the wines. If you call in, let them know I recommended them. And in the meantime, keep exploring this beautiful planet we live on, one glass at a time!