Don’t miss the 20th Budapest Wine Festival
-Top Hungarian wines poured for you by the winemakers themselves at the stunning Buda Castle from September 7-11 at the 20th Budapest Wine Festival
The stunning UNESCO-listed Buda Castle is unforgettable any day of the week, but when it hosts the Budapest Wine Festival, which runs this year from September 7-11, it really is the place to be.
On those heady days, around 220 vintners– a veritable Who’s Who of Hungarian winemaking – will take time out from the Hungarian harvest, or from their preparations for it, to pour their wines for an adoring public. Winemakers and traders explain how the wine is made in all its vinous detail, and bring wine country right to the capital for five fine wine days. The setting on the terraces of the majestic and ornate Buda Castle, with its magical views over the Danube to Pest, is something to behold and we can’t think of a wine festival anywhere on the globe that’s quite like it. It has everything: wine lovers chat with iconic winemakers by day, while by night a party atmosphere ensues and envelops all those fuelled by fine Hungarian wine. Hearty traditional Magyar bites are served up to help you put a lining on your stomach.
With so many wineries present, it can be hard to find the crème de la crème of the Hungarian winemaking fraternity, as well as the best newcomers and rising stars. We can take you straight to them. Our guide, a qualified wine expert and wine writer, is also on hand to answer your questions and tell you what you need to know about the wines your tasting. We’ll show you Hungary’s distinctive grape varieties such as Furmint – the backbone of Tokaj’s legendary sweet Aszú wines – which is now being used to great effect to make bone dry white wines that brilliantly reflect the terroir that made them. No boring lectures here! We’ll lead you straight to magically mineral whites, blockbusting and unique reds plus sumptuous sweets. Furthermore, we’ll show you that Tokaj’s legendary sweet Aszú is more about remarkable complexity, rather than overt sweetness, and how it is up there with the greatest wines in the world – by tasting it of course.
We’ll pour for you exciting spicy and fragrant red wines from dynamic winemakers from the region of Szekszárd, which is rivalling Villány in the realm of blockbusting reds, and Sopron, the so-called Capital of Kékfrankos (Hungary’s most widely planted red grape and the same grape as Austria’s Blaufrankisch). We’ll also show you why Villány is considered the greatest. For elegant reds of finesse rather than full-body, we’ll get out the best wines from Eger, which is equally special for whites