It's harvest time! I've waited what seems like forever to get to this point. I began my wine making career in April at Malatinszky Kúria, and since then, I've been eagerly awaiting for the first batch of grapes to come in the winery so I can finally take part in the noble occupation of wine making from beginning to end. I was hoping this year would bring a good vintage, so I could be really proud of the wines we are making this year, in which there is a piece of my heart. So how has the '09 vintage turned out so far? ...

This year spring began about three weeks earlier than usual, so bud break also came earlier this year. After a fairly good flowering period, the grape berries developed quickly and healthily and the year was starting to look good. Then with the month of June came cooler weather, many rainy weeks, and hail to top it all off. In these weeks there was much damage suffered in Villány, many vineyards suffered from the hail; in the Ördögárok area, hundreds of kilometers of earth was washed away by the water and „thanks” to the humid weather, powdery mildew and peronospora also caused much damage. A large part of our vineyards, thank goodness, remained largely unharmed, but my hopes of having a good year were beginning to dispel. The beginning of July also began with frequent showers and variable weather. Many of you asked me, what can we expect from this year’s vintage and I remember saying that if, starting tomorrow and continuing on all the way to harvest, if the weather would stay fixedly between 26-30 degrees Celsius every day, and there would be no more rain, then maybe there’s still hope and a great vintage is possible. And by some miracle, so it came to be, and the following weeks brought sunshine and dry, warm weather. And before you knew it, it was time for harvest with warm days and cool nights preceding it, which greatly help the sugar developing in the grapes.

With harvest time now here and with it, a whole bunch of work for my fellow colleague, Béla, and me, we decided to pack up our things and move to the winery. We set up our tents at the winery, our camping table, chairs, grill and other accessories so that at ten in the evening when we rinsed out the last of the equipment, we didn’t need to go home, because we were already there! Pictures in the gallery. On September 3rd we began the harvest with Chardonnay, its juice absolutely delicious with great balance of sugar and acidity with an incredibly pear-intense aroma. Two days later we began the Sauvignon Blanc. Its juice was slightly green in color with varietal character already detectable in the nose, crisp acidity—I think our timing was perfect with this variety. So this is where we are now and I hope we can expect much the same in coming weeks and I will have myself a good year!