(Manfred Klimek)
In Eastern Europe, as the Hungarian writer Imre Kertész explained to me more than thirty years ago in an interview in Budapest, communism after 1950 had despised wine culture as a bourgeois legacy and regarded viticulture as unimportant (unless it was good for export revenues). In return, wine drinking in the small surviving bourgeois milieu was elevated, because wine culture was one of the few relics of a yesterday in which wine stood for that whole Europe whose western countries were no longer freely accessible to the inhabitants of Eastern Europe. In addition, Kertész said, under communism one had to drink in order to endure it. Workers and collectivised farmers downed spirits to forget; those who considered themselves cultured people met privately over one or two bottles of wine in order to exchange ideas while moderately intoxicated.
One thing is clear: communism, which dominated every aspect of life for around forty years, failed to crush Eastern Europe's wine culture – despite dilapidated cellars, poor hygiene and chemically tortured vines. 35 years after the fall of the socialist regimes, wine culture from Warsaw to Sofia, from Prague to Bucharest – entirely without calls for alcohol-free moments and months – is thriving as vibrantly as we were last able to experience it in our part of the world 20 years ago.
Why do we know so little about the wine culture of Eastern Europe? Why don't we drink far more Hungarian wines – a wine country that, just 80 years ago, was one of the leading and globally renowned wine-producing countries? The answer is simple, but has a component that is surprising to German ears. Firstly, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Romanians, Poles (yes, there is viticulture in Poland too), Bulgarians and the citizens of the Balkan countries mostly drink their own wines themselves. Secondly, since the arrival of the market economy, the winegrowers there have been asking surprisingly high prices for all quality wines – often at least 15 euros per container, and these prices are paid. This means that quality winegrowers have little incentive to export their wines. And when they do export, it is above all to other Eastern European countries – because they still see themselves there as a kind of political community of fate.
On our tour through the wine regions of Eastern Europe, let us stay for now in the country where we began: Hungary, where the first vines, as in almost all of Europe, were once planted by the Romans. Hungary, scarcely larger than Bavaria: this is the puszta, red peppers, the melancholy of fiddle music – and wine. Above all, wine. And especially because major, famous wineries from France and Spain (Oremus, Vega Sicilia) brought Tokaj, the most renowned region of Hungary and the East, back onto the world wine stage with substantial investment as early as the 1990s.
Where socialist planned production was responsible for barely drinkable wines, one of Europe's most exciting wine scenes now thrives. No wonder Hungary now attracts not only gourmets and wine nerds, but also those who want to establish themselves here in viticulture: German dropouts, Italian oenologists, Viennese eccentrics.
Tokaj, home of the “weeping gold”, Tokaj Aszú, that mythical sweet wine which fascinated tsars, emperors and popes alike, initially had little to counter the foreign onslaught. Until István Szepsy arrived. The man was nothing less than Tokaj's great reformer. A fanatical perfectionist, a radical craftsman. He was the first to make dry Furmint on a broad scale: flint, salt, pear, stone fruit, vibration.
Then there is the Eger region, the region of Egri Bikavér – “Bull's Blood”. Once a cheap bagged wine for socialist student parties in Vienna and Berlin, today, thanks to pioneers such as Attila Gere, it is once again a serious red wine: cool fruit, dark spice, often a wild minerality from the volcanic soil. Anyone who thinks Blaufränkisch (called Kékfrankos here) is solely a Burgenland speciality has never been to Eger.
In the south of the country, near the Croatian border, lies Villány. Red wine rules here: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, but also Blaufränkisch – juicier than in Eger, darker, but never clumsy. Horst Hummel, a lawyer, also makes some of the country's most exciting wines in Villány: they are rough, angular and headstrong – like Berlin, where Hummel comes from
Hungary also has a few smaller, virtually unknown wine regions that are home to treasures of grape varieties. Take Lake Balaton, the “Hungarian sea”. On its shores, the vines for the country's most exciting white wines at present grow: Olaszrizling, Juhfark, Furmint. Wine vines grow almost brutally picturesquely on the romantically situated slopes of the volcanic cone of Somló. A single hill in the midst of the burgeoning puszta: wines as austere as liquid lava stones: salty, taut, yet also full of juice and power – almost Hungarian Chablis.
Wines in Eastern Europe: they are long since no longer folklore, but for the most part wines of a modernity that constantly reinvents itself, somewhere between stainless-steel wine industry and biodynamic natural-winegrowers. No museum-like folk-costume display with an ancient wooden cask and minor-key accordion. No, what goes into bottles between Prague and the Black Sea has long belonged to the avant-garde of European viticulture. Free, wild, experimental – and often ruthlessly good.
Let us travel from Hungary via Slovakia to South Moravia. This region has quietly and unassumingly transformed itself into one of the most exciting wine regions in Central Europe. Above all around Mikulov (Nikolsburg), in the geographical extension of Austria's Weinviertel, wines are being made that make every natural-wine hipster's heart beat faster: biodynamics, orange wines, Grüner Veltliners with brutally wild-herb aromas and Sauvignon Blancs that have nothing to do with the Marlborough populism of New Zealand Sauvignons.
The new generation around winegrowers such as Milan Nestarec and Richard Stávek no longer needs a French leaflet. They do their own thing – and it tastes of the future.
Even less well known: the Czech wine region of Mělník, less than an hour's drive north of Prague. Emperor Charles IV once had Pinot Noir planted here – on small steep plots, on granite and slate. It is like the Saxon Elbe Valley here – only more rebellious. Winegrower Bettina Lobkowicz proves that the diva grape Pinot Noir can also make grand appearances in the Bohemian fog.
Back to Slovakia: when people say wine and the Danube, they usually think of Austria, the Wachau, Kremstal, Kamptal and Carnuntum. That is too narrow a view, because on the Slovakian side of the Danube, Danube viticulture continues. Around Bratislava and Modra, Blaufränkisch (Frankovka), Riesling and Grüner Veltliner grow in excellent sites. And top Saar winegrower Egon Müller has Rieslings made at his Château Bela that resemble his top wines from the Scharzhofberg – only with a little more Habsburg-monarchy pep in their baggage and at the affordable price of his German wines.
Off to the far East, to Slovak Tokaj: the part of the wine region lost to Hungary at the Peace of Trianon. On around 900 hectares, winegrowers such as the visionary J. J. Ostrožovič produce great sweet wines – but also dry Furmints which, as in the Hungarian part of Tokaj, are seen as an alternative to the traditional sweet wine, which is increasingly in less demand.
Briefly back through Hungary and across the Tisza to Bulgaria and Romania. For a long time, including during communism, cheap wines for Western European supermarkets took centre stage here. But those days are partly over.
Above all in Romania a vibrant winegrowing scene has emerged that sets international standards. Above all in Transylvania. Wines from indigenous varieties such as Fetească Neagră and Fetească Albă are a manifesto of a new Romanian wine identity, which emerged very late, around 20 years ago, when independent winegrowers founded the Association for the Promotion of Romanian Wine (APVR) and thus, with quality and also partly international varieties, ended the dominance of the state wineries, albeit comparatively late
In Bulgaria the old Balkan wine region of Bessa Valley is stimulating international sommeliers and wine enthusiasts to visit for tastings. Wineries such as Orbelus (organic pioneers) and Zagreus (experimental vinification) are the pioneers here of a quality development that has unfortunately stalled recently.
And then Poland. Yes, Poland. It is no longer just a few freakish vines near Kraków or Zielona Góra: Poland has understood that climate warming also represents an opportunity to make full-bodied wines in Poland. In western Poland, they are now bottling Sauvignon Blancs and Rieslings that we could easily confuse with white wines from Saale-Unstrut.
Particularly exciting is the region around Szczecin (Stettin) and Gorzów Wielkopolski – less than 150 kilometres from Berlin and actually somewhere where one would no longer expect to find viticulture.
The absolute insider tip here is the small Winnica Turnau winery – family-run, biodynamic and, with a cuvée of Solaris and Johanniter, a pioneer in working with disease-resistant varieties – without which they could not make wines in north-eastern Europe.