Moric Project Villa Tolnay Hidden Treasures n°2 Somló Kis Tamás 2022

This wine was born of the meeting between Roland Velich, of the Moric estate, and the winemaker Kis Tamás, on the hill of Somló, in western Hungary. This isolated volcanic butte, often described as the smallest wine region in Europe, rests on basalts and volcanic tuffs. The continental climate, with Pannonian influences, and the volcanic soils produce taut, saline whites with great longevity.

The grapes are harvested by hand, then fermented with native yeasts, partly in stainless-steel tanks and partly in Hungarian oak barrels. The wine is aged for 5 months in the same vessels, then bottled unfiltered, to retain all the tension and mineral character of the Somló terroir.

This wine reveals notes of quince, green apple, pear, linden blossom, lemon, beeswax, almond and flint. The precise fruit is accompanied by floral and saline notes. The palate, chiselled and taut, is long, slender and sapid, with fine mineral tension, delicate acidity and stimulating bitterness on the finish.

It was the Romans who planted the first vines, at a time when the country was part of a region called Pannonia. At the dawn of the 18th century, Hungary, united with Austria, exported its most famous wine throughout Europe: Tokaj (made from the Furmint grape variety). As everywhere in Europe, winegrowing was destroyed by phylloxera in the 19th century. During the communist period, vineyards were run as cooperatives, which guaranteed winemakers a stable income. Quite a few small growers could not keep up with this expanding economy, so Hungary's vineyards were restructured, losing 30% of their area in the process. Today many family estates have made their mark, some of them producing wines of incredible quality. As elsewhere in Europe, winegrowing is declining under the European restructuring plan for the wine industry. Hungary, which lies at the same latitude as Burgundy, has a continental climate with hot summers and cold winters. Rainfall is sufficient for non-irrigated viticulture, and the soils are varied and of high quality depending on the region. With around a hundred native and international grape varieties, the country enjoys good varietal diversity. The Furmint and Hárslevelű of the Tokaj region, made as dry wines and the source of Tokaj's great sweet wines, are undoubtedly the best-known varieties today. The most widely planted grape variety is Olaszrizling for whites and Kékfrankos for reds. International grape varieties, mainly Bordeaux varieties, flourish particularly in the south of the country, where they produce wines of great class.