Hungary: The Villány region

Hungary: The Villány Region

Most people who visit Hungary as tourists find themselves for a long weekend in Budapest. If they are a little more adventurous they may spend some time by the shores of lake Balaton. And having visited once, they reason, why would you return? Well, one reason might of course be for the wine!

While there are many amazing places to drink wine in Budapest, and the Etyek wine region within an easy 30 minute drive, some of the best wineries are a little further from the capital. One such are is that of Villány. Here you can forget the high rise conurbation of Budapest, and transition into a small town vibe which in many ways feels like you’ve jumped into a time machine and gone back to the 1950s.

To get here, you can take a train south from Budapest to city of Pécs near to the Croatian border. I would recommend, if possible stopping for half a day or longer here, as there are a number of fantastic sights to see. These include the domed Mosque of Pasha Gazi Kasim was built in the 16th century during the Ottoman occupation of the city which is now a Catholic church. The Cathedral is also worth a visit.

Once you have spent some time in Pécs you can take a 45-or-so minute train ride to Villány. Be warned, don’t expect a taxi to take you to the centre, if you time it right you can catch one of the regional buses which pass through the town, otherwise its a 20-30 minute walk to the centre depending on where you want to go. Expect to find the main street lined with small wineries.

If you have the flexibility to, I’d recommend travelling here towards the end of the week, as many of the vineyards are only open Friday and Saturday evenings. This is definitely an overnight trip, you’re not getting from Budapest to Villány and back in a day, not if you want to do anything meaningful while you are there!

There is a wealth of accommodation for all budgets and preferences. I’d just recommend that you check the location in relation to everywhere you want to go. My go-to website, booking.com sometimes has the habit of showing properties which are actually several KM outside the town. If you want something special I’d suggest Bock is a good option, their cellar is spectacular and they have fairly decent spa facilities if that is your thing.

So having settled in, there are many wineries to visit. I cannot say I’ve visited even a small proportion of them, but those I have are based on some of the best wines I’ve encountered prior to my visit. The style of wine here is predominantly big reds! When I was at one vineyard in September 2024, they were talking about wines with enough residual sugar to make wines at 18%! So if you are planning on a bit of a tour, just remember that 15 and 16% wines are very different to 11 to 12% wines when it comes to how quickly the intoxication creeps up on you!

As a result of the big wines, and the slightly limited eating options, I suggest you plan visits around their proximity for places to eat. And I would suggest that there are a number of wineries which are walkable from the centre. Probably the furthest one I have walked to is Sauska which is on the boundary of the town. If you have the budget, there is a great fine dining restaurant here, so you could easily do a tasting and lunch / dinner and spend half a day here, so you can make worth the walk.

Nearer the centre, there is a nice little café called Caffe and Pasta which does a selection of burgers, pizza and other quick and easy food which potentially makes for a short and snappy lunch to maxmise your time in wineries. Many of the wineries themselves also serve food and google is your friend here to check out the options. While you are for sure not going to pay Western European prices here for the quality and (often) quantity of food, do expect food prices to be not dissimilar to Budapest. I can personally vouch for the quality of the food at Vinatus winery, and they also have some very drinkable wines as well.

So which wineries have I visited and what did I think…

Sauska and Sauska48 restaurant

Sauska is one of ‘the’ names in Hungary, particularly for sparkling wines from Tokaj and full bodied reds from Villány. Tastings and meals can be booked via their website https://sauska.hu/ettermek/sauska-48/. The wines from here are good quality and the tasting I did included a brief tour of the production house and cellar which is very impressive.

Think refinement and comfort in terms of the tasting room and restaurant. There is an open kitchen where you can see the food being prepared, and the quality looked excellent. Equally it had the prices to match. The young wine tour guide who did my tasting was knowledgeable and friendly. I went just before lunchtime which seemed to be a quiet time to visit.

I would say that the wines are technically excellent and very drinkable. The scale of production is such that the focus is on consistency. The Sauska 7 wines were the best quality I tasted, but the lower the number on the bottle the better it is, so if you have the option to taste something lower than 7, definitely take it.

Vinatus 

This is a traditional cellar style winery with a small restaurant area. I called in here for lunch, but actually the wines here are also pretty good. Food was hearty and plentiful. The owner spoke some English, which helped me not need to muddle through with my somewhat tragic Hungarian. It very much felt like I was eating with the locals which is usually a good sign!

The line up of wines here ranges from inexpensive light whites, through to premium reds. While I was there people were calling in to buy bottles which indicates they have a good following. According to their website – https://vinatus.hu/ – they offer 4 different types of tasting with 4, 5, 6, or 8 wines. The 8 wine one is, at the time of writing (January 2025) priced at HUF 6,200 around £12, €15 or 16USD. So this is not an expensive tasting. Other wines are available by the glass off the menu. Their mid-tier wines are priced at around HUF 1,400 or £3 a glass, so again very accessible. Bottle prices start around HUF 1,800 – around £4, and run to around HUF 19,000 – around £40.

For me this winery worked because it was on the walk back into town from Sauska and was a convenient lunch stop.

Maul Zsolt

Almost in the centre of the town on the main street you can find Maul Zsolt. I managed to get a tasting on a Sunday afternoon, but normally this would not have been possible. The range of wines here goes from easy drinking floral white wines, through very quaffable reds, to absolutely top notch award winning age worthy reds. Their best wine sells at HUF 120,000 (around £240, €295, 310 USD). And it is, as you would expect stunning! Although at that price, a bottle was a little outside my travel budget.

The wine bar is very pleasant and the staff are excellent. The tasting selections have altered a little since I visited in September 2024, but it looks like a premium tasting of 12 wines is around HUF 25,000 (around £50). I would suggest contacting them directly to see what other options there are if that is a little rich for your wallet. Or you might want to head to http://www.hellowine.com and search for Maul in Villány. At the time of writing they have tastings for c. HUF 5,000 and HUF 7,000. As an aside, I’d recommend hellowine as an option if you cannot book directly with vineyards generally.

At Maul I tried some beautiful wines. And even at the cheaper end of the scale, they have some really good quality wines which are worth buying a bottle to stick in your case and take home. They even named one of their wines in my honour (see picture above). Sadly, only joking about that one, David is in fact one of the owners. The guy who served me was super attentive and knowledgeable about the wines. Its a really nice wine bar and I believe you can also do tastings in the cellar if you have a group.

More information can be found on their website at: https://maul.hu/

Szemes

This winery is to the North East of the town at the opposite end to Sauska and Vinatus. Following Baross Gábor Utca (the main street) out of the town, you go around a corner and the winery is just a little further before the Csányi winery on the opposite side of the road.

There are two experiences I had at the wine tasting here which made it a little different. Firstly, they were offering one of the wines direct from the barrels in the cellar, which felt like I was getting much closer to the wine making process. Secondly, they have a white wine made from the Cabernet France grape. Cabernet Franc is not most people’s first thought when it comes to a Blanc de Noir wine, and it definitely has some very unique characteristics. I recommend trying this as it will likely be unlike most other wines you have tasted.

I was very lucky to visit when no-one else was there, so I got a personalised tour. I can recommend the snacks, they were plentiful and a welcome addition to the wines, soaking up some of the high alcohol from the rich reds. Villány really is one of the two (possibly three) centres of great red wine in Hungary. And here the grape of choice is the Cabernet Franc. And the Cabernet Francs at Szemes really are very delicious.

The winery information can be found at http://szemespince.hu/ and you can book your tasting by email or phone.

Rejiji Wines

Heading back into town, you come across the Rejiji winery. Continuing the theme of blanc de noirs from Szemes, this winery has a white Merlot. I would recommend trying this and it has a very tasty nutty quality which gives the wine much more depth and complexity than most wine wines. They, of course also make some rather good red wines – its Villány after all!

This winery also has a wine dispensing machine which means you can buy a card, load it up with money and sample their wines self-service style. English readers may be familiar with this style of arrangement if they have visited Vagabond wine bars. The benefit of this is, if you only want a very small sample, you can get that, and work you way through the range. They also offer 4 different tasting packages so if you want to do a more structured tasting that is an option as well. The most expensive is HUF 4,500 forints for 5 wines (about £10, €11 or 11.5 USD).

The place is only open Friday and Saturday, so if you want to visit, you’ll either need to go then, or call ahead and make a booking. The bar itself is modern and simple, with a nice outdoor terrace. It is also virtually next door to the Villány wine museum if you fancy a quick visit there before your visit (the googlemaps says the museum is open until 8pm on Friday and 9pm on a Saturday, but its probably worth going earlier as its not unusual for places to close earlier than advertised). When I visited Villány, I emailed the museum and was told they did not speak English. So be prepared for some ‘lost in translation’ moments if you want to try wines there.

As far as Rejiji are concerned, you can see more on their website at: https://www.rejijiwines.com/

Bock Winery

So we’ve talked the wineries on the main street (of course there are many more, so do try stopping by a few), now there are a couple just a few minutes off the main street worthy of a mention. The first is Bock. Bock are one of the bigger producers and you can tell that by the rather impressive hotel and restaurant they have managed to build with their profits.

There are some very good wines here. If you haven’t had a Battonage Chardonnay (of you have and like the style) they have a good one here which is worth a try. They also have a range of wines from inexpensive quaffers, through to eye-wateringly expensive aged complex reds. All available to taste at the bar, although expect to have to buy a bottle if you want the really top end stuff.

The cellar here is truly breath-taking, so its worth a visit just for that. A tour costs the very modest HUF 1,500 (about £3), and takes place at 4pm Sunday to Friday and 2pm and 5pm on a Saturday. For this fee you get the cellar visit and a tasting of two wines. Afterwards head to the bar and check out their choice of further tastings. From HUF 3,000 (around £6) you can taste 4 wines. At the other end of the scale if you want the really good stuff, you can pay HUF 15,000 (around £30) for a 10 wine tasting.

Of course, there is a very impressive restaurant here with reasonably priced food. After 12 wines, you’ll probably need something to eat, and be grateful not to have to relocate to do so! The staff here were attentive, and seemed to have some basic knowledge about the Bock wines if you want to chat about them.

If you’re looking for a nice spa weekend, you might want to look at their rooms. If you stay you forego the HUF 1,500 cellar tour fee. Not the greatest incentive, but they do also have a great spa and the rooms look a notch above the other potential offerings in the area. More information on all of the above is available on their website at: https://hotel.bock.hu/en/

Malatinszky Maghari Wine bar

I admit that I am a little biased about Malatinszky. In my view he is one of the best wine producers in Hungary. He has an entire method of wine making named after him for goodness sake! But his wines are little bit divisive. One of the reasons they are so good is that they are not finely filtered and so have a lot more body and character. But this can also make them taste somewhat ‘unfinished’ to some people. To me, on balance, what you lose in finesse, you gain in flavour.

I tried one of the Malatinszky wines at the Budapest Wine Festival in September and while a small glass (100ml) set me back a lot more than anything else I drank there, it was a wine which made you contemplate the meaning of life.

The bar is located just a 50 meters or so from Bock, so its an easy walk between the two. Again, this bar is, though, only open Friday and Saturday night. I believe there are tastings available, but the details of these are a little scant on the website, so I’d recommend dropping them an email or calling ahead.

One of my biggest regrets of my last trip is that I hadn’t realised the limited opening hours and so did not get to stop by. So if you do want to include it on your list, check out the information at: https://malatinszky.hu/en/. And if you are looking for a wine to bring back that doesn’t break the bank, I’d strongly recommend the Signature Cabernet Franc. The 2015 was very good in January 2025.

Of course there are many more wineries that you might want to visit in Villány, but all of the above I have tried wines from. For me, I’d aim to spend 2-3 nights in the town to truly make the most of the visit. Don’t forget to factor in Sunday opening, which is either totally closed, or open to just after lunch for most places. From that perspective Sunday is a pretty good departure day, maybe with a sneaky winery visit before you leave.

So, if you are planning an extended trip to Hungary, or are currently living in Budapest and fancy a really great getaway, I’d highly recommend at trip to Villány. The pace here is much slower than in the city and the wines are some of the best in the world. If you do decide to take a trip there, let me know which wineries you decide to visit and what your favourite vineyard and wine were. And as always, keep exploring this beautiful planet we live on, one glass at a time!