Hungarian Wine Challenge – ZOAD Pincészet és borterasz Etyek (City & Wine tour)
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 ZOAD Pincészet winery in Etyek.
About the winery
For about as long as I have been travelling to Hungary, I have been going on a wine tour which travels from Budapest to Etyek, run by City & Wine. You can use my affiliate link to book the wine tour here. The tour runs in the morning and afternoon with the option for either 2 or 3 winery visits and either lunch or dinner depending on the time of day. The morning is 2 wineries plus lunch and the afternoon is 3 wineries plus dinner.
The ZOAD Pincészet winery is one of the newer wineries on the tour and in fact is on the site of a previous winery Optimus. There is an interesting story where the two owners decided to swap their properties and so Optimus is now on the site ZOAD used to be on at the other end of the street! The winery itself was founded in 2000, by joint owners Ádám and Zoltán, both of whom have a background in wine making.
The location here is nice. The view shown in the picture is from the bottom of the vineyard hill and looks back towards Budapest, taking in the Buda Hills. Sometimes tastings are hosted at the bottom of the hill, but they also run tastings indoors and when I last visited had just built a conservatory style tasting area as well, giving three options. The tasting room indoors accommodates around 20 and is cozy.
The wines here are very much light fruity wines, but the winemakers here like to produce things slightly differently and create a number of blends which are quite unique. You can also find some sparkling wines here and I believe can taste them as part of a package. This is a good winery to visit to try something a bit different.
The service here is efficient and pleasant. The winemakers are proud of their wines and like to tell you about them. Typically, Hungarian wines do have quite a strong florality, at least in the whites, and you can definitely capture that here, along with some other flavours from the blends. I would say the blending here is a positive thing and the wines typically have the best characteristics of the different varieties used.
| The big thing about this winery, I would say, is location and the view. There is nothing better than sitting on a warm day overlooking that view with a well made glass of wine. And I’d say that’s exactly what the terroir here is about – wines which are well made, bring the local characteristics, but which have a little bit of magic mixed in to make them slightly different to the simplistic Etyek styles. |
The owners here really like to hear feedback from visitors on the wines they like, which is always a good sign. They aren’t necessarily trying to build a massive wine brand, but their production is growing. And considering that they are pretty high up in the Hungarian wine society, they are remarkably humble. They also tend to serve really nice bread sticks, which is obviously a win as well!
Because this is one of the newer wineries on the City & Wine tour, I’ve only visited twice, so haven’t gotten to know the owners well. But I think its a good addition to the tour, showcasing something slightly different to the Etyek single variety approach. And the winery is investing in its facilities which means even better quality options in for future visits.
Overall, this is good winery to visits if you get chance while in Etyek. I am hoping in a few years their sparkling wines will be beginning to show some aging characteristics and that might make it even more interesting to visit.
I have never quite found the time or courage to try to arrange my own visit, but it is possible to get the bus from Budapest out to Etyek and walk between wineries. The great thing about the City & Wine tour, though is that besides the obvious door to door transport, you get to meet different people on each tour from all over the world, drink great wine together and share the experience. That’s probably why I keep rebooking!
So if you want to visit the ZOAD Pincészet winery, its definitely worth a trip to Etyek. The way the City & Wine tour works is there are multiple wineries, so its not guaranteed you will visit on every tour. So to be absolutely sure, you’d need to arrange you own visit. But you can do so using Hellowine.com – Just click here (not an affiliate link). If you do plan a visit, let them know I recommended them. And in the meantime, keep enjoying this beautiful planet we live on, one glass at a time.