(Manfred Klimek / animated image: runwayml)
On Sunday, Hungary will elect a new parliament. For the first time in years, pollsters and political scientists believe the opposition is capable of unseating Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government. Before I take a look tomorrow at Fidesz’s political influence on the wine industry – which I have also witnessed first-hand – let’s go back today to the year 2023, when I visited two female winemakers in Tokaj. This article also appeared in a different form in *WELT am SONNTAG*, which commissioned the report on the ground.
There is an old saying. It held true for several centuries and, until 1945, went like this: the world’s finest wines are produced in France, Germany and Hungary. But then came the twentieth century and its murderous ideologies. Of the three world wine-producing nations in this narrative, only France remained after the end of the Second World War. And new world wine-producing nations – Italy, Spain, the New World – emerged.
After the collapse of the ideological regimes, nothing was ever the same again. The places at the world’s wine table were reallocated by 1990 at the latest. And that is how it remains. So the winegrowers and wine merchants in Hungary’s most famous wine region, Tokaj, also had to reinvent themselves. Over the last ten years, this reinvention – in a country where machismo is part of everyday life, particularly in rural areas – has increasingly fallen into the hands of female winemakers and wine managers who, very quietly and unobtrusively, are redefining Tokaj’s wines: more elegant, more precise, more subtle, more European and, above all, more enjoyable to drink; a development that would also do many a Western wine-growing region a world of good.
Judith Bott knows a thing or two about cows. The 47-year-old agricultural scientist wanted to breed cows; she had a vision of a dairy farm, happy ruminants on unspoilt pastures in eastern Slovakia, where Judith and her husband Jozef come from – from the small, forgotten part of the cross-border wine-growing region of the same name.
But then came viticulture, this ‘overarching interest’, as Bott puts it, presumably to avoid the overused word ‘passion’. Judith Bott’s overriding interest is directed first and foremost, and almost exclusively, towards the Tokaj region and the Furmint and Lindenblättriger grape varieties, and towards exploring what these indigenous varieties – even when vinified as dry wines – can reveal to the world of wine. Of course, Bott can also make sweet wines; everyone here can make sweet wines. But for a good ten years now, the premier discipline in Tokaj has been dry Furmint and Lindenblättriger – today there are more dry Tokaj wines than the fruit-sweet varieties that have been celebrated for centuries. Can one say that Tokaj has reinvented itself? “One could say so,” says Bott, who now also holds Hungarian citizenship, “because without the dry wines, Tokaj would hardly have any significance today.”
Judith Bott and her husband Jozef have been living at their vineyard, the Bott-Pince in Bodrogkeresztúr, for six years – previously, financial hardship had meant that their home and workplace were separate. The house was once a cultural hub, adjoining a former pottery factory; a large, partly unused site that the Botts were able to acquire at a bargain price. Anyone wishing to know how to set up a wine estate – one that is even internationally renowned – on a shoestring budget can learn a thing or two from the Botts. These people, who were once literally penniless, have built up a stable business over the last twenty years, though even today the majority of their grapes still come from leased vineyards – little in the way of ownership, but a strong reputation. Has winegrowing in Tokaj become more female-dominated? “I don’t know if you can generalise like that,” replies Bott, “but I can name you about fifteen female winemakers in the region. For Hungary, that’s a very high number.” Not just for Hungary.
Female winemakers? Until forty years ago, they were virtually non-existent in viticulture. And if there were any, it was because there was no male heir designated by the parents – that is, by the father – to take over the vineyard. The winegrowers’ view of wine was a purely male one, because the work in the vineyard and the cellar is hard, physical labour that takes its toll on the body over the years. Winegrowers were men who, by the age of sixty, often could no longer stand upright – if they even lived to be sixty at all.
However, as viticulture – the world’s only form of agricultural cultivation – began to generate more and more money, even small wineries were able to delegate the heavy labour. And when this new form of viticulture – the one that turned a profit – began to demand intellectual input as well, namely reflection on vineyard sites, microclimates, cellar techniques and the estates’ sales strategies, the daughters of winegrowers worldwide found themselves called upon to take part in the business or even to be in charge on their own. This has led to different, far, far better and more palatable wines. It has also meant that many winemakers have realised that they are making wine for women too; indeed, primarily for women who order, buy and drink their wines themselves.
Another story of venturing out into the world and returning to Hungary is told by the winemaker Vivien Ujvary; yet there is something truly unique about her biography – a story you wouldn’t normally hear, or at least not in quite the same way, in the wine world; for 39-year-old Ujvary is not only responsible for the wines of Barta-Pince in Mad, but also for those of her old family vineyard on Lake Balaton. However, this family estate has just 0.65 hectares of Welschriesling and Pinot Blanc, which is practically nothing, as these few rows of vines can only yield grapes for around 2,000 bottles a year. However, as Ujvary’s Balaton wines are served in Hungary’s top Michelin-starred restaurants, Winekitchen and Textura, and are regarded as an insider’s tip in Hungarian wine bars, she is considered an exceptional winemaker in the country. This, combined with her international career – which began as a winemaking apprentice in California and New Zealand – prompted the owners of Barta-Pince to entrust their estate to a winemaker who not only possesses a winning personality but can also speak with great insight about the region, the soils and the climate. And in the Barta wines, she consistently embodies a winemaking philosophy that can certainly be described as feminine and which is now firmly established as part of modern viticulture. In other words, elegant, multi-layered craftsmanship that uses the oak of the barrels in an absolutely subtle yet effective way, far outshining the brash wines of the past. Is there such a thing as a ‘feminine revolution’ in Tokaj? “What I can say,” replies Ujvary, “is that here in Tokaj, female winemakers probably face less scepticism than elsewhere in Hungary. And, for me at least, no obstacles have been put in my way to do what I believe is right.”