Magyar Hírek, 1985 (38. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)
1985-10-26 / 22. szám
ABOUT THIS ISSUE „Pinceszerezés” at vintage time and later from Tokaj to Sopron The summer is finally over and by the time these lines appear the Indian Summer will have gone too. Hungarians call it the Old Wives’ Summer, and it is certainly true that old people on park benches appear to enjoy most of all the late warmth of the Michaelmas sun. Some have to race against time: what with the news from Mexico it almost appears presumptious to mention that a small earthquake did some damage in Hungary in August. Viktor Gábor’s story and pictures tell of the villagers of Berhida and Peremarton, who were át the epicentre, working hard to ensure that all will have a roof over their heads before the cold weather starts. The Hungarian Forum held many important functions this summer. Earlier issues had published reports on some of the latest, a meeting of librarians of Hungarian birth, and one of agriculturalists, both held in Budapest. The current issue contains the views of some of the participants of the meetings as such and of the present position of their fields. International meetings always tend to remind one in how many countries Hungarians can be found. Thus Dr Tibor I. Emecz, who attended the Conference of Agriculturalists, is in charge of research in the Ministry of Agriculture in Bahrein. The journalist Klára Schweitzer on the other hand, who attenderi the World Congress of Women in Tanzania, talked to Hungarian families who live there. It being autumn it is only apposite that we should publish an article about the vintage. The quality of wines has been widely discussed throughout Europe lately. One cannot raise objections against the quality of Hungarian wines, more precisely those bottled in Hungary. The law is severe, and it is rigidly enforced. One of the articles in the current issue deals with water, and not wine, and plenty of it. The country is about to embark on an undertaking that is important for all Hungarians, and that will be associated with heavy burdens. By 1990 a system of hydroelectric stations will be built jointly with limitrophe Czechoslovakia. A reservoir will be built near Dunakiliti, and a 720 MW power station at Bős (Gabcikovo). A second hydroelectric station is planned for a location around 100 km downstream, in the Danube Bend, above Nagymaros. It will have a capacity of 160 MW. Considerable public discussion preceded the decision. At the prompting of ecologists new expert opinions were commissioned by the Hungarian Government. These are now available and as a result the design has been amended in a number of respects. Costs will predictably amount to more than 3500 million forints, and they will be shared equally by Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Austrian banks and construction firms will also participate in the project. When finished the power station will be the fifth largest in Hungary. The International Cultural Forum, the most important cultural event in Budapest this autumn, has started as we are going to press. The tightness of schedules does not make it possible to do more than report on the opening in the current issue but there will be detailed accounts in future numbers. PÉTER JÁNOS SÓS (Joys and cares) Pinceszerezés is something very special in Hungarian. Other languages can express the pleasant state when one is quietly busy tasting wines drawn from great barrels with the wine-taster in a cellar full of the dry odour of noble mould, only by circumscribing it. And then there is all that enjoyable fuddyduddying part of pinceszerezés, that gives something to fuss about to the master of the cellar for each season of the year—and for each day of those—from vintage to the next vintage as well as the benefit of forgetting the cares of the outside world, while he is lovingly looking after his wine. I think I would not be far off the mark suggesting that all these were part of the reason why growing grapes and making wine was so close to Hungarian hearts for a thousand years. The same joys and the same cares are still a living reality today, when industrial methods have made great inroads into grape growing and wine making. People gather the grapes and make wine, on tens of thousands of tiny vineyards all over Hungary. But this year grapes are not plentiful: cold weather in the spring was unkind to the vines in many districts. Still it seems that the quality of the wines will be good. (An encounter at Tolcsva) One of my most memorable pinceszerezés took place at Tolcsva, in the heart of the Tokaj-Hegyalja district. Tolcsva goes back to the Age of the Conquest or Landtaking, when the Hungarians first settled in this part of the world and is also one of the most ancient locations of Hungarian vine-growing. The Romanesque church is shingle-roofed, steepled, the there is a Baroque chateau next to it: one of the residences of the squires of old, the Rákóczi family. The vineyards completely encircle the village, reaching down from the hillsides almost to the houses down below. Doing a cellar-crawl at Tolcsva I recalled that two wine-growing and wine making traditions met there at the time of the Conquest. The Hungarians—so the chronicler tells—found well-established vineyards around here. Valiant Tarcal who, riding ahead, was first to see the district, reported the good news to Prince Árpád. Thus the natives already knew wine and grew grapes. But the Hungarians also brought with them the knowledge of wine making from their long wanderings. The two traditions amalgamated, later French and Italians came to the Tokaj-Hegyalja followed by Germans. Each of these waves introduced new varieties of grapes, new kinds of expertise, new technologies as one would say today. The Tokay wine kept becoming better and better, more and more noble until one day by a lucky chance—so tradition holds—Máté Sepsi Lackó, a Protestant clergyman, the court chaplain of Princess Zsuzsanna Lorántffy, hit on the way to make aszú. He once let the grapes shrivel on the vine, and the aszú of Tokaj, one of the finest wines of the world, was born. Hungarian viticulturists havé domesticated a whole line of noble grape varieties. Naturally, Tokaj-Hegyalja has carefully preserved its traditions, but the Cabernet, the Semilion, the Sauvignon, the Chardonnay—to mention but a few of the best—were developed elsewhere. The Hungarian soil, a climate rich in sunshine, yet still tough, transforms and ennobles every imported variety of grape. The result has been the emergence of excellent wines: the Cabernet of Hajó.», the Muscat Ottonel of Mór, the Pinot Noir of Villány and many others. (Badacsony, Tihany) There are few places where vintage-time is as lively as around Lake Balaton. From the slopes of vine-covered hills at Badacsony and Tihany one can look down onto the blue mirror of the lake, onto ancient, baroque wine-cellars half-way up the hill side towered over still further up by columnar basalt, reminiscent of organ pipes, produced in prehistoric times by flows of molten lava. The traditions of wine making in this region, go back right to the Romans. The first vineyards were established here by legionaries stationed in Pannónia, and grapes have been grown here ever since, without a break. Balaton viticulture was not interrupted even amongst the storms of the Great Migration, as if the peoples who settled here in succession had passed on the pruning knife to the next comers. 28
