"We make wine at Lake Balaton but sell more in Japan than in Hungary

Locals around Balaton call it the "golden bridge": that almost kitschy but stunning optical illusion that appears when the lake's surface reflects the rays of the setting sun. It's especially breathtaking when you peer down from a lookout or a hilltop and see the whole landscape bathed in golden light. That same landscape, however, has been going through the most radical transformation since Hungary's socialist period, a time when party officials sprinkled the region with holiday resorts for the masses. Even the golden bridge can't hide the fact that if you look down today from the hills of Csopak, Tihany, Tagyon, Ábrahámhegy, Badacsony, or Vonyarcvashegy, you see more and more old wine press buildings that have been converted into summer cottages, overflow pools officially registered as "firewater reservoirs," bright green irrigated lawns, paved terraces, and apartment blocks that look completely out of place.

The foundation of the Balaton Uplands' cultural landscape has always been the vineyard plots: the orderly rows of vines that have covered the sun-facing slopes since Roman times. As József Laposa, a Badacsony horticultural engineer and regional planner, recalled to 24.hu a few years ago: "In the Balaton wine hills, the goal is to preserve and support viticulture, to create a mutually enriching connection between active recreation and winemaking." Yet several mutually-reinforcing processes have led to a situation almost unique to Hungarian wine regions – one that makes growing grapes and producing wine increasingly difficult.

The main reason, of course, is the location of Balaton's wine region. Since the late 19th century, Balaton has gradually transformed into a holiday destination. At first it was a retreat for the privileged few, then for the middle class, and by the 1960s, the working class also came to relax here. This brought intense urbanization: the southern shore, from Balatonvilágos to Balatonkeresztúr, became covered with buildings, and on the north side, small villages blossomed into resort towns – places where once the lake was used only for bathing cows. Following the fall of socialism and with the arrival of the market economy, the area around the lake became even more valuable, especially during the domestic tourism boom before COVID as well as the collective yearning for nature brought about by the lockdowns. Property prices around the lake skyrocketed brutally. The ripple effect pushed prices up even in villages far from the water, including plots with a few hectares of vineyard without any buildings.

In this environment, wineries had to make the shift from mass production to quality winemaking. But global wine consumption is declining, and Hungarian wine still struggles to find footing on export markets. On top of that, Balaton has its own special problem: with the insanely high square-meter prices, a winemaker simply can't commercially justify buying land here. To offset these disadvantages, many have opted to combine winemaking with hospitality, opening restaurants, wine bistros, organizing events and festivals. And they do this all while literally battling the elements: the heat, droughts, sudden downpours, and the plant diseases brought on by a warming climate.

To see just how unique the winemakers' situation in the Balaton Uplands really is, we spoke with seven winemakers from six different wineries that lie at very different points of the spectrum with respect to size, capacity, export potential, and ecological certification.

The fall of socialism in Hungary brought about a radical transformation not only in the structure of its economy, but also in the world of winemaking. The vineyards, which had mostly been managed by collective farms, were suddenly being snapped up by enterprising farmers, sometimes using compensation vouchers. Many winemakers set out to reclaim and restore the family-owned lands and vineyards that had been absorbed into the collectives decades earlier.

The Dobosi family traces its roots back to 1721 in the Nivegy Valley, which stretches north of Zánka. This explains the year appearing on their labels. It's always been a winemaking region, where each family would typically supply one or two inns or taverns with wine and live off that. In the late 1980s, Győző Dobosi's father left the local collective farm and started producing wine on his own. He wanted to rebuild the family estate and, "he was tired of making low-quality bulk wine." Today, the winery is run by his sons, who cultivate 30 hectares, 25 of which they own and the rest they rent. They also buy grapes from local growers, but only if they can certify that their land is organically farmed. They sign five-year contracts and pay above-average prices for the harvest. Their core variety is Welschriesling, but they also grow Juhfark, Kéknyelű, Blaufränkisch, and a few international varieties such as Rhine riesling and Sauvignon blanc.

"Our advantage used to be our disadvantage: the German tourists came to Balaton and ate and drank everything," Győző Dobosi recalled of Hungary's late socialist period. Because of tourism, everyone chose quantity over quality. "That's where the whole 'Zimmer Feri' mentality came from with tourism – you had to make your money in two months." According to him, up until the 2000s, the prevailing mindset was that Western things were good, Eastern – i.e. Hungarian – things were bad. The same applied to local grape varieties. It was Huba Szeremley, he says, who first planted the idea that Hungarian grapes might actually be worth something.

22 kilometers away, on the outskirts of Balatonfüred, lies the Gyukli Winery. It was founded about 40 years ago by Krisztián Gyukli's father. They only process their own grapes – nothing purchased from elsewhere. Most of their vines are "alternative varieties that I was the first to bring into Hungary," says Gyukli. They grow Welschriesling, Blaufränkisch, and Sauvignon blanc, but also fungus-resistant varieties such as Solaris, Muscaris, Hibernal, and Füredgyöngye. It was Gyukli himself who pushed these through official state recognition. His scientific curiosity for viticulture is obvious – he spent ten years working in Germany, at a research institute in Freiburg. "We're a small, five-hectare winery, producing 20-25 thousand bottles a year on average – and we sell all of it," he said.

Gyukli evoked his childhood memories to describe how the wine business used to work. As a kid, instead of going to the beach, "we would filter wine into plastic jugs down in a musty cellar" – mostly riesling, but also sweet reds, since that's what people wanted. "We'd load the wine by the thousands of liters into a Barkas van and deliver it to taverns. Back then, you could raise three kids on that and build an entire family's livelihood from it," he recalled of a time when administrative paperwork was far lighter than today.

Krisztián Gyukli added that part of the shift in mindset after the fall of socialism was a wave of wine conferences, events, and festivals. "Now we've reached a point where we're tasting different vintages, blends, and selections from various vineyards out of German lead-crystal glasses."

Even COVID couldn't dampen the property boom around Balaton. Those who were able to afford it decided they'd rather ride out the next pandemic in a village or a countryside house than locked inside a Budapest apartment. The explosion in real estate prices spread to towns farther from the shore – even to remote areas and agricultural plots with no buildings at all.

At Telex's request, Zoltán Balogh, chief economist at Ingatlan.com, analyzed about 220,000 property listings to filter out the wine cellars and wine press buildings for sale in Veszprém County. "Experience shows that many people like to mix business with pleasure: a large enough agricultural plot can have up to three percent of its area built on, which means a press building or utility building can easily double as a nice, little vacation home," he explained. For comparison, he also looked at similar listings from the Villány and Tokaj wine regions. Since both the square meter prices and the size and condition of the buildings vary widely, he calculated using the median price per square meter of land.

According to his findings, in July 2025, the average price per square meter for a wine press building in the Balaton Uplands was 706,000 forints. For reference, residential properties in the lakeside towns average around one million forints per square meter. "In Tokaj and Villány, that figure is about half or a third if you go by the press building's floor area," he added. But there's a twist: if you look at the price per square meter of the vineyard land itself, Tokaj actually comes out the most expensive, at 40–50,000 forints per square meter, compared to around 9,000 near Balaton and just 3–4,000 in Villány. In other words, the land itself may be cheaper than in Tokaj, but once there's a building on it, the price shoots up. Balogh also tried to manually filter listings with panoramic views – and naturally, those were pricier: compared to the 700,000-forint regional average, these could easily reach one or even two million forints per square meter.

According to Barna Barabás from Zelna Winery, "The Füred-Csopak Wine Community is probably the one that submits the most '80-percent requests' in the country – this takes up all of the community magistrate's time, even though this is not what they should be dealing with." He was referring to the rule that on registered vineyard land, 80 percent of the property must be planted with vines. When officials go out to inspect, they often find that the plot is "economically unfit for viticulture – for example, on a 2,000-square-meter lot, only 1,200 square meters are vines," and the rows end so close to the house or fence that "you can't even turn a machine around on those tiny plots."

Zelna Winery was founded in 2014 by Lilla Lukács and Barna Barabás. They left behind their marketing and landscaping businesses in Budapest, started with eight hectares, and now grow vines on seventeen – mostly Welschriesling, but they also make red, rosé, and even sparkling wines. Their production facility sits on the edge of Balatonfüred, fittingly where the vineyards begin. To better showcase their wines, they opened a wine bistro on Füred's promenade, Zákonyi Street, which has since become a trendy restaurant.

"I think there's been tremendous progress, and maybe that's true of the whole Hungarian wine industry too," said Lilla Lukács. The many vineyards being turned into vacation properties will, sooner or later, reshape the very landscape that draws people here to relax. But then again, "consider the old man next door, who worked his whole life and got his vineyard back through compensation." He cultivates it and sells the grapes for 120 forints a kilo, and then someone from Budapest shows up, likes the plot, "and the old man says he'll give it up for sixty million, and the guy replies, 'Okay'. Well, it's hard to blame him for that."

We spoke with representatives of wineries of various sizes – the biggest among them was clearly Varga Winery, which produces enough volume to export. Founder, owner, and CEO Péter Varga said they cultivate about 180 hectares in the Badacsony and Eger regions, but that's only ten percent of what they use overall. They buy grapes from nearly 2,000 more hectares. They have two main facilities, one in Feldebrő (Heves County) and one in Badacsonyörs. "Thirty-one years ago, we bought what was then a rather underdeveloped winery with outdated technology, but at least it was functional," he recalled. "That got us into the lower end of the mid-price segment with around 400,000 bottles," but thanks to steady investment and consulting with experts, they've since moved up "to the upper tier of the mid-range, producing thirteen million bottles a year."

For years, some Balaton winemakers have been lobbying for the state to support wineries in the Balaton Uplands, since "they can't expand their operations because of real estate prices." According to Varga, "you can buy a hectare of vineyard for anywhere between two and six or seven million forints, depending on its condition. But if it comes with a Balaton view, the price jumps to thirty or forty million." Economically, he says, that makes no sense – unless the winemaker treats it purely as an investment and plans to sell it later. Varga added, "on these one-hectare plots worth forty million, people are building houses worth three to four hundred million." Yet if you buy a vineyard outside the village limits, you can't start building right away. You can start construction four years after the purchase, and you're required to keep the vines in cultivation for fifteen years.

At one end of the spectrum is Barnag Wines, which started out in 2017 under the name Grand Vin de Barnag, with its first vintage in 2018. "Basically, it began as an experiment – let's try making a single barrel of wine," recalled founder Bence Szilágyi. It worked, and he and his friends had fun doing it. Their first official vintage was just 2,000 bottles; five years later, they were up to 22,000. "We get grapes from about five hectares, all farmed organically," Szilágyi explained. Alongside their own harvest, they also buy grapes. "They grow top-quality organic grapes on 11 hectares," said Szilágyi, describing the grower they buy from. "That’s how we source our fruit, and from that we make 15–20 thousand bottles a year, depending on the vintage."

According to Szilágyi, wineries essentially follow one of those two paths. In the first, "there's a big investor who burns through the money they made in another industry." They "dive in with completely wrong expectations," thinking "this will be just as profitable as their other ventures." But by the time the first vintage is ready – about five years after planting – they've already sunk a hundred million forints. When the wine doesn't sell due to lack of real market demand, they start slashing prices, which distorts the market. The second model, by contrast, "takes four or five generations to build, an incredibly slow process."

"I'm the first one here to actually go into winemaking," Szilágyi went on, "and on top of that, the property prices are insane." For him, leasing land is the only option. Many people buy vineyards purely as an investment and then lease them out for cultivation; Barnag Wines rents plots like these around Aszófő and Monoszló. "Producing organic grapes is riskier and more labor-intensive, and the smaller estate size – plus the fact that we do a lot of things by hand – makes the product fundamentally more expensive."

According to Győző Dobosi, the situation is also made worse by the fact that grape purchase prices are stuck at early-2000s levels – extremely low. Partly because big wine companies' cheaper products still sell well, consumers keep buying the low-end stuff. It's already tough enough to grow grapes in the region: "your neighbor reports you for spraying at seven in the evening on a Friday." Raising prices isn't really an option either, since everyone wants to drink good wine cheaply: "We simply can't raise prices fast enough to match our rising costs." About 70 percent of Dobosi wines are sold locally: either at events or online, the latter taking off during the COVID period. That's when they also parted ways with the big retail chains. Nowadays, you can find Dobosi wines at Borháló, in smaller wine shops, restaurants, and Ecofamily stores.

Gyukli wines aren't found on supermarket shelves anymore. They once appeared in small quantities through one chain, but after two years they stopped because the paperwork was overwhelming. These days, they sell mainly at the cellar, through their webshop, and to nearby restaurants and bars. On-site sales are especially important thanks to the tastings: they held 180 of them just last year. Still, even with strong revenue, profits keep shrinking because expenses are so high. The business usually only starts to turn a profit around July each year, but explosive growth isn't their goal anyway; it's a family winery built on organic, steady progress.

One way for Balaton wineries to stay afloat is by applying for state and EU funding whenever possible. Some go all-in on grant applications, some are content with maintaining what they already have, and some steer clear of the whole process. Everyone agrees it's a specialized skill that requires a ton of research and paperwork – and because the reimbursement-based system means the money often doesn’t arrive until years later. No wonder the bigger players tend to hire professional grant writers to handle the time-consuming work.

According to Győző Dobosi, a lot of grant money has been spent with "very, very low efficiency" – sometimes on high-end wineries or restaurants that later shut down once their required maintenance period expired and the business plan didn't pan out. "But what does a family business do?" he asked. "It keeps hustling, twisting and juggling things however it can just to squeeze out a living." Recently, the Dobosi estate applied for funding for guest accommodations, oak barrels, tanks, and a tractor. Over time, Dobosi realized that loans aren't the work of the devil – especially since they require a detailed proposal: "They basically forced us to draw up a five-year plan," he said.

Barna Barabás from Zelna Winery said they also rely on area-based agricultural subsidies and take part in the Agro-ecological Program. You don't even need organic certification for that – it's enough to, say, turn part of your land into a bee pasture or use bird-friendly technology. Of course, certified organic farming also comes with financial benefits. They haven't applied for new support in recent years; their last successful project funded new tanks and a wine press. Most grants require some level of co-financing and are reimbursed only a year or two later. The hardest part, he says, is how much energy the process consumes. At the same time, those funds are essential, because wine simply isn't a great business product – many wineries, according to Zelna's operators, aren't even profitable.

"For me, it's important to value what we already have, to maintain it, and to fix what breaks," said Krisztián Gyukli. The grants come with so many strings attached that they disrupt everyday life – "those few tens of millions just aren't worth it," he said. "If I bought new barrels or tanks, that kind of growth would bring risks I'm no longer willing to take." He's applied three times so far – got disqualified twice and won once, receiving a little over a million forints, which he used to buy a new bottling machine and a mechanical labeler.

We also spoke with a winemaker who sells almost exclusively abroad, but most still sell primarily within Hungary, exporting only small amounts to neighboring countries, usually to Hungarian communities there. Many winemakers have strong opinions on why Hungarian wine remains so little known internationally – why riesling or bikavér don't have the fame of Austria's grüner veltliner or New Zealand's sauvignon blanc – and where national wine marketing has gone wrong. There's even a government commissioner and an agency dedicated to promoting it, which, according to the statement they sent to Telex, is "working full steam" on the issue.

"We make our wine at Lake Balaton but actually sell more of it in Japan than in Hungary," said Bence Szilágyi from Barnag Wines, a small producer that nonetheless exports the vast majority of its natural wines. They started out shipping to Denmark and Sweden, and over the years expanded across Europe, then to Canada and the U.S. Today they sell to more than twenty countries – about 85 percent of their bottles go abroad. The Hungarian market still lags far behind many Western and overseas ones, both in pricing and in taste. "Though, let's be honest," Szilágyi added, "it would be far more sustainable to sell locally – transporting wine also means emissions."

"Breaking into export markets is typical for natural wines. It's a niche category, and everything works a bit differently than in conventional winemaking," he continued. While traditional winemakers attend large expos, natural winemakers go to smaller, salon-style events. In that world, "importers keep an eye on each other's portfolios and inspire one another," so the only way in is through consistent quality and word of mouth. When it comes to Hungarian natural wine abroad, Balaton now leads among the country's regions. That's partly, he says, because it's such a livable area – "it attracts good people." According to him, "within the natural wine scene, Balaton might even be better known now than Tokaj." He recalled how their Swedish importer recently organized a themed tasting featuring four Balaton producers – something no other Hungarian wine region has had yet, simply because "they wouldn't have been able to put together such a diverse lineup."

Péter Varga believes that since the war in Ukraine, Hungary's international image has changed. "Germany is currently the only market where people actually know us, where they have a positive image of Hungary, and where it makes sense to sell Hungarian wine," he said. Their "hunting ground" is the Carpathian Basin – out of their thirteen million bottles sold annually, only four hundred thousand go abroad, mostly to Hungarian-populated areas in Slovakia and Romania. He adds that Hungary also has some very large, "hyper-efficient" wineries that "don't take visitors, don't maintain a wide assortment, don't represent specific regions," but produce massive export volumes at extremely low cost.

Zelna Winery also exports, and according to Barna Barabás, having that export leg is essential for staying profitable. "We've been going to trade fairs and entering international competitions for years," he said, adding that foreign importers are showing growing curiosity about Hungary's wines – especially about Welschriesling, its main variety. But nearby competitors are catching up: Czech, Croatian, and Serbian winemakers are also producing Welschriesling, which much of the international market knows better by its Croatian name, Graševina. For most foreigners, when they think Hungarian wine, Tokaj and Furmint still come to mind first, which Lilla Lukács believes needs to start including the riesling. In her view, Welschriesling hasn't received enough focus because Balaton is viewed primarily as a tourist region, while places like Eger and Villány have a stronger wine identity, and national wine marketing tends to spotlight them more.

Since 2023, Hungarian wine marketing has had its own government commissioner: Pál Rókusfalvy. Because several winemakers criticized the lack of export support and the weakness of national wine promotion, Telex reached out to the Hungarian Wine Marketing Agency (MBÜ Zrt.), which operates under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In 2023, the agency prepared a National Wine Marketing Strategy, as well as an action plan for each subsequent year (available online) that outlines which campaigns to run and which expos to attend. The main problem, they said, is that Hungary's wine portfolio is far too diverse: "from a communication standpoint, that's unworkable." As a result, they decided to focus their promotion on Tokaji wines (Aszú and Furmint), volcanic wines, Welschriesling, Blaufränkisch, and Bikavér.

Several of these efforts tie directly back to Balaton. Wines grown on volcanic soil could be one of the region's breakout strengths. Volcanic origin is a trendy topic – as a recent Drinks Business article also pointed out. In the global branding strategy, they've also focused on promoting organic winemaking. Early this summer, the agency met with Balaton winemakers and agreed that "the region's main message is Balaton itself, and the product behind that message is Balaton Welschriesling." Their new image film even touches on a linguistic issue: how hard it is for foreigners to remember Hungarian wine names.

In September, the agency organized the Bor – Hungarian Wine Summit for the second time, inviting over 150 international wine professionals for conferences and educational trips. This year's tours focused on the Balaton wine region. Through its Wines of Hungary campaigns, the agency also supports wineries entering foreign markets – they've already run promotions in China and South Korea, and plan to do so in Germany, the UK, and the U.S. as well.

One of their domestic goals is to reach younger audiences. Their Summer of Bubbles campaign appeared at festivals to promote the spritzer with the slogan: "Keep it simple – focus on spritzers." They're also working with the Hungarian Tourism Agency to present the Balaton wine region together with its natural and cultural heritage. On the PR front, several magazines have published special issues dedicated to Hungarian volcanic wines – all featuring the Balaton region.

With the growing conviction that even a drop of alcohol is harmful to the body, younger people are drinking less and less. Producers and marketers are scratching their heads. They're floating ideas that would've sounded like heresy decades ago, such as non-alcoholic wine, which has now reached the Balaton region too.

Over the past century, wine consumption has fallen in traditional wine-producing countries and risen in those that don't produce much. According to Péter Varga, growth is happening mainly in the U.S. and China – both now major producers themselves – as well as Russia, Poland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In such northern countries, spirits are on the decline, which drives up wine consumption. In Hungary, though, the picture is more complicated: many people still make their own wine for personal use. Varga also noted that driving limits how much people drink: "Average per capita consumption is now only sixteen to seventeen liters a year – that's one reason the Hungarian wine industry is in a tough spot," he explained.

János Figula believes "you have to give people tastings, welcome guests, spend time with them" – there need to be plenty of events aimed not just at professionals but at everyday wine lovers. Győző Dobosi feels "we've made the whole wine world too snobbish," and now people are afraid to ask questions about wine for fear of embarrassing themselves. He wishes people would just grab a light bottle off the shelf, "come home from work on a weekday, and pour themselves a glass."

We met János Figula at the former Reformed Church wine cellar overlooking Balatonfüred. Of course, it's more than just a cellar – there are several buildings on the property. Because of their family's religious ties, they decided five years ago to buy and restore the site and its 250-year-old buildings. "We bought them, renovated them, and our goal was to recreate a community space here and give it back to the people," said the owner. The Figula family cultivates 30 hectares of their own vineyards and also works with a few local growers. They began rebuilding the family estate after the socialist period, buying back old family plots and replanting traditional varieties like Welschriesling, Furmint, Blaufränkisch, and Zenit. "In that sense, we're preserving and nurturing tradition."

János Figula works with the restaurant Szomszéd Kertje, which moved into the old Tölgyfa Inn, part of the Figula estate. They also hold traditional wine tastings, around 300 to 350 a year. Every Saturday at 4pm, even in the off-season, they host a regular tasting on top of all the private ones by request. "What we do here is refined yet laid-back hospitality," Figula said, summing up their philosophy. He's known the restaurant's operator, Attila Tóth, for years, but this summer was their first collaboration in the old inn.

At the Dobosi Estate, there's both accommodation and a restaurant. According to Győző Dobosi, this model isn't unique to Balaton. Even in Villány, "any serious winery also has a restaurant and lodging." During summer, they hold at least one wine tasting every day. "We want to be a restaurant connected to a winery," he said, "not the kind of place where people just come in to drink a beer." In his view, guests who've spent a night there after a tasting will remember the Dobosi name far more: "they are potential walking billboards," spreading the word of their reputation. The estate also organizes events like e-bike and vineyard tours. In the latter, visitors can explore the vineyards independently using a QR-code system.

"In 2019, we opened a wine bistro right here in Füred's tourist district," said Lilla Lukács of Zelna Winery. When they first arrived in Füred, many wineries were getting into hospitality, and they also felt that as a new winery, they needed a place to showcase their wines. The venue grew naturally – it started with simple tasting platters, finger foods, and tapas, but has since become a stylish wine bistro with a Michelin recommendation and a seasonal menu. Many other winemakers have gone down the same path, sometimes with creative twists: the Gyukli estate also offers the opportunity to picnic among the vines, while the Varga family once hosted a music festival on the grounds of their winery.

People in Balaton's tourism industry have long said that the region's Achilles' heel is that outside the two-and-a-half-month summer high season, there are hardly any tourists. Yet stable, year-round operation with permanent staff – employees who don't head off to ski chalets in Austria every winter – can only be achieved if visitors start coming year-round.

"I'm not delusional. Winter will never be like summer," said Győző Dobosi about Balaton's off-season tourism. Still, they stay open "all year, every day, with a full kitchen," except for one week in January. For accommodation, they focus on stays between Thursday and Sunday. By April 2025, their occupancy was already 76 percent. Dobosi admits they will probably be in the negative for December and January, but he believes they can stay profitable through the rest of the year.

"It's possible to think in terms of a year-round Balaton. You can give it a shot, but if people don't come, there's not much you can do," said Barna Barabás. He believes many families simply can't fit another trip to Balaton into their yearly budget after their main vacation. Zelna's bistro stays open year-round except for a two-week winter break for the team, but financially it's not worth it in the dead season. Most restaurateurs "would rather close at the end of September and reopen in May." Lilla Lukács added that even though Balatonfüred is packed with programs and wellness hotels, people don't come off-season. And those who do, who possibly have a holiday house, might just take a stroll down the Tagore Promenade, then cook dinner at home with groceries from the supermarket.

So many wineries, bistros, restaurants, and snack bars stay open through the off-season at a loss, just to keep their staff from leaving. They swallow the cost of wages (and winter utilities) for minimal workload so they won't face a labor shortage in summer. The alternative involves the industrial revolution of Hungarian vineyards: mechanization partially replacing manual labor. This brings us full circle to the topics of subsidies and profitability. Krisztián Gyukli believes, "If workers are employed year-round, even on reduced pay, at least they can stay home for winter instead of watching their kids grow up over Skype." Because of labor shortages, the Dobosi estate plants with the principle that "whatever can be mechanized, we'll mechanize – we don't see any other solution." Dobosi adds that vineyard workers in the region should be paid more, and in return, they should really know their craft.

Winemakers in the Balaton Uplands are tackling some of these challenges by joining forces in various organizations. Two of the most prominent are Balatoni Kör – a group made up mostly of winemakers and hospitality professionals – and Rizling Generáció, an association of young winemakers united around the Welschriesling grape. Several of the winemakers we spoke to belong to one of these umbrella groups, whose flagship joint product is BalatonBor, a wine that can only be made from Welschriesling.

Those less familiar with wine might wonder: why do Hungarians call the Welschriesling variety "Italian" riesling (olaszrizling), and if it is Italian, why do Hungarians grow it? As summarized by Bor.hu, it's almost impossible to pinpoint the exact origin of this variety, which has become a classic to Central Europe. The Hungarian name suggests one of the main theories that it came from northern Italy, but studies and tradition have also pointed to Spain or France. The Germans call it Welschriesling, where Welsch means "foreign," distinguishing it from their own riesling, to which it has no genetic relation at all. It's grown throughout the region, from Croatia and Austria to the Czech Republic, and in Slavic areas it's known as graševina. In Hungary, it covers about 3,800 hectares, with its heartland in the Balaton Uplands, especially the Balatonfüred–Csopak wine region.

Barna Barabás of Zelna Winery serves as president of the Rizling Generáció, a fellowship of young Welschriesling growers in the Balatonfüred–Csopak area. Estates in the group range from two hectares to 170, but professional cooperation works well. Zelna also participates in the BalatonBor project, a joint product between Rizling Generáció and Balatoni Kör. Lilla Lukács sees this light, summer wine as a great marketing product.

After BalatonBor was created, winemaker Tamás Kovács of St. Donat suggested developing a multi-tiered "wine pyramid," structured according to hills, wine communities, and villages – with riesling remaining the key grape at every level. "It's just the origin we need to communicate, not the variety." That's how they came up with HegyBor, above BalatonBor, and a yet-to-be-launched top tier highlighting individual vineyards. There are BalatonBor wines from both the northern and southern shores – Badacsony, Keszthely, Boglár – but the goal is a unified style. The Rizling Generáció also plans to make the vineyards more visible to visitors. That is why they came up with the vineyard sign project: concrete markers to inform cyclists, walkers, and drivers about each vineyard around the Balatonfüred–Csopak region.

Within Balatoni Kör, Győző Dobosi is the project manager for BalatonBor. This year, local winemakers bottled over 100,000 bottles under the label. Dobosi has long championed Welschriesling as Balaton's signature grape – one that deserves more emphasis in production, communication, and marketing. "If someone wants to drink Hungarian wine, they shouldn't have to reach for Hungarian chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, or cabernet sauvignon," but they could try a real Hungarian variety. As president of the Balaton wine region, Dobosi believed the entire Balaton area should be treated as a unified whole. He cited Italian Prosecco as an example: it received its protected designation of origin in 2009. Since then, all of its producers have received support in both technology and marketing. Balaton already has its own local origin protections. Around Szentantalfa, for instance, there's the Nivegy Valley designation. They even made a joint wine there with eight winemakers collaborating.

Scorching harvests and withering hopes

As the climate warms, regions that would've been unimaginable for winemaking just a few decades ago are now turning into wine countries. Even Norway and the Baltic states are experimenting with vineyards and wine production, and Danish wines have already appeared in Michelin-starred Paris restaurants. The change is visible locally, too, and is seen most clearly in harvest timing: while Hungarian harvest festivals traditionally took place in late September or early October, the scorching, dry summers now often mean the wine is already in barrels by the end of August.

The climate around Lake Balaton has completely changed – you can even see it in the algae blooms every June. János Figula has noticed two major shifts: "In the past twenty years, we can safely say the harvest has moved up by a full month, and the growing season has shortened by just as much." Before the turn of the millennium, the harvest lasted from September until mid-November; now it runs from mid-August to the end of September. This shrinking window isn't great for producing quality wine. Figula says they can adapt somewhat by choosing different varieties and cultivation methods, but "when you plant vines, you're making a fifty-year decision." The heat is becoming more extreme, and there's been too little rainfall even in winter and spring – the groundwater is almost gone. They're trying to leave more leaves on the vines for shade and keep green strips between rows.

According to Barna Barabás, in addition to the warming, the weather has also become wildly unpredictable in recent years. The Zelna winemaker recalls that 2015–2016 were the last really balanced seasons in terms of rainfall. After the severe drought of 2022, everyone was wondering "what we could do differently," but then a good year came and "everyone just went back to business as usual." Then came 2024, when "some vines actually dried up." First, there was so much rain they had to fight powdery mildew, and then "the tap shut off, and there was practically no rain until harvest." Many days were hot from the early morning onward, which sped up the ripening process. In the old days, the Füred Wine Weeks Festival began in mid-August when everyone was just preparing for harvest. Last year, however, they were already well into picking by then.

Krisztián Gyukli, however, isn't overly worried about climate change. "We were the first in the country to introduce certain techniques that, to this day, many still laugh at," he said. In his view, the "pharmaceutical and chemical industry lobby" is very strong and keeps many winemakers living in fear. He added that as soon as word spreads about, say, the appearance of peronosporales, many immediately start spraying. "They spray pesticides without thinking, without conducting any kind of analysis." But if you really understand the vine – "all the bacteria, springtails, earthworms, and beetle larvae in the soil" – you can see how both the earth and the plant regenerate themselves. "Our main slogan for fifteen years has been: nature is good – nothing needs to be added or taken away." According to Gyukli, once humans interfere, deficiencies appear; we try to treat them, and it's easier to spray something than to look for the root cause. He personally records weather data. "I've got records going back at least twenty years." His measurements show far more sunshine and far less rainfall than the textbooks claim for this region. He says they started planting varieties that can handle these conditions twenty years ago, even if they were considered oddballs for it. "These grapes hold their acidity and make sensational wines – we don't need to add sugar or acid from a bag or anything else," Gyukli explained.

The changing climate also means more pests are surviving further north each winter, bringing new diseases to the vineyards. This year's main challenge is a phytoplasma disease spread by the American grapevine leafhopper. First spotted in the Mura region and around Balaton, the "Flavescence dorée" disease has now spread across the entire country, forcing growers in areas like Szent György Hill and parts of Zala to cut down vineyards. After months of silence, the government finally weighed in on the issue, promising billions for prevention efforts in the fall, and the media has been filled with reports about it. Even with action, defense isn't foolproof: the state can mandate spraying during such crises, but not every grower complies, and on abandoned, overgrown plots the insects can easily survive.

According to Győző Dobosi, much more publicity should be given to this outbreak. "On the Slovenian side, they warned growers in Zala that it was a huge problem – and over there, Slovenian radio keeps running public service announcements urging winemakers to take action," he said. Telex also visited the area around Lendava in mid-October to see how Slovenia is handling prevention efforts.

Even the grapevine leafhopper doesn't alarm Krisztián Gyukli. He says we just have to accept that "our climate keeps shifting northward" – that Balaton's weather today is what Villány's was fifteen or twenty years ago. However, "chemical plant protection isn't the answer." He believes balance must not be disturbed and that ecological cultivation is the way forward. "Put up birdhouses, piles of stones where lizards and snakes can hide during the day," he explained. These creatures come out at night and hunt the pests. "The goal is to create an ecosystem where every population returns to the vineyard," he said. If the spaces between the vine rows are kept green, many animals will return, natural enemies will balance each other out, "the machine runs, the creator rests – and for us, that system already works."